


That Unnoticed & That Necessary

by writingmonsters



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Car Accidents, Cormoran Strike is a Human Disaster, F/M, How I'm Dealing with the Lethal Wait, Major Character Injury, Matthew's a Shit So Jot That Down, Panic Attacks, Post-Career of Evil, Relationship Problems, Right Now I Have Half a Plot and a Lot of Enthusiasm So, Slow Burn, i'll add more tags as stuff comes up, miscommunications
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-04-20 18:54:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14267415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: "I would like to give you the silverbranch, the small white flower, the oneword that will protect youfrom the grief at the centerof your dream, from the griefat the center." - Margaret Atwood (Variation on the Word Sleep)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to pools-of-venetianblue/lindmea for being an enabler.

The silver-bright chime of the wedding bells reverberates in Cormoran Strike's bones as he limps his way back across the open churchyard, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette. There's a half-empty packet of matches and the remains of the ceremony program, neatly turned into confetti, but no cigarettes – the battered, cardboard carton forgotten in the pocket of his greatcoat.

He curses his bad luck, undoing the buttons of the suit jacket that is marginally too tight, too oppressive in the summer air. The peals of laughter from the wedding party gathered on the steps of the church are like glass shattering in his ears. He is not going to think about the few, stumbling words exchanged amidst a shower of white petals, Robin glowing softly with delight in the sunlight slanting through the chapel windows.

A little over four hours, from London to the church in Masham.

Four hours to think of what he might say – to imagine confessions, apologies and reconciliations and all manner of impossible, improbable fantasies as Shanker had navigated the Rent-a-Car along the arterial tangle of motorways.

And there had been so many things he ought to have said. But he had felt foolish and empty-handed at the sight of her, burnished bright and rosy in her wedding frock. The organist had rocked back-and-forth on her bench, swaying into the wedding march, and Strike's ears had begun to ring – hollowed out and heard over a vast distance.

Her beautiful, beaming smile.

The stone floor of the church swaying gently beneath him. Sunlight through the high, stained glass windows forming coronas. Matthew and Robin haloed in the glow. Perfect. 

A brief 'congratulations' to the newlyweds, and he would have gone – didn't dare risk anything more with his soul feeling so tender and battered after the past few days. But then she had bounded up before him, eyes shining, and it hadn't just been the bruises that had made his smile ache.

" _You came!_ "

Something soft had broken behind his floating ribs. "Should I not have?"

Certainly, Matthew's polite expression, carved straight from stone had said ' _yes_ ' and _'precisely'_ and _'piss off, you bloody menace'_. Cormoran couldn't quite blame him.

"No!" That heart-shaped face so desperately earnest. " _No_ – I'm so glad you did. I just thought…" His terrible, frantic fury. The heated words flung like a slap across her face. _There is no us, Robin_. And then – a different kind of pain to focus on. "My God, your _face_."

"Laing."

"Oh Christ." And then, as if remembering all at once where she was, Robin had flinched and darted a look around the church as if checking to see whether God had heard her.

And Cormoran, who had studied the extent of the damage in the Rent-a-Car's rearview mirrors, applying antiseptic to the various cuts and bruises, was well aware of how terrible his swollen, purpling face looked. Quick to reassure her "it's all right. I'm fine. Laing's less fine, but he's in police custody." He'd caught the way Matthew's eyes started to harden. "Robin, I…" Casting about hopelessly for safe words, ones that aren’t fraught with dangerous feeling. "Congratulations,” he manages. Fumbling. “To you both. Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good."

_By itself it makes that which is heavy light;_

_And it bears evenly all that is uneven._

_It carries a burden which is no burden_.

Now, as Cormoran leaves behind the tumult of wedding guests spilling from the doors of the church, he thinks of Thomas a Kempis and how wrong the priest had been. It was a very great burden indeed.

As he approaches the idling car he is acutely aware of Shanker’s keen eyes tracking his progress, of the marrow-deep, lancing pains in his truncated right leg, of the heaviness of his soul.

The driver’s side window lowers itself slowly and Shanker cranes his upper half out the window to squint up at Cormoran. “You didn’t stop the weddin’, Bunsen.” There is something vaguely accusatory in the rasp of his voice.

Cormoran’s face does several curious things at that, flummoxed. “I never said I was going to stop it.” The bruises throb viciously.

Shanker harrumphs, but doesn't press the issue. He waits until Strike has heaved himself into the passenger's seat, has arranged his bulk into a configuration that warrants the least amount of aches and protestations, then passes over the carton of cigarettes and asks idly "where to now, boss?"

In the rearview mirror, Cormoran watches surreptitiously as newly minted bride and groom are swept off to their reception amidst a shower of affections and best wishes. He taps out one of the thin, dusty smelling cigarettes and sighs. "You up to drive all the way back to London?"

His bruised skin feels too tight, rubbed raw by Yorkshire and chapel bells and endless expanses of rolling grass and lonely, squatting trees. He needs to be back among the chaos of the city, among people living and doing in the grimy streetlight.

Shanker is already hauling the car through a manic three-point turn, the wheel spinning through his hands. "Yeah, sure. Why not?" he grumbles good-naturedly, showing off his golden tooth when he smirks. "Just gotta find someplace to have a piss first. 'S a long drive, you know?"

Cormoran does know.

He knows very, very well because fifteen minutes into the return journey, Shanker leans over like he's confiding a secret and asks him without ever taking his eyes off the stretch of road "Bunsen. Why the hell'd we drive all the way up here if you weren't even gonna go get drunk at the reception?"

And Cormoran spends the next one hundred and thirty three minutes wracking his brain for a satisfactory answer that won't sound pitiful the moment it hits the air. In the end, he just keeps silent.

" _Cormoran_."

Robin gifts him with a serene smile from the driver's seat, her small, competent hands secure on the wheel. The car trembles around them; tires vibrating, chassis shuddering.

" _It's all right_ ," she assures him, the vowels full and rounded with the color of Yorkshire. " _There's nothing to be afraid of_."

Grit smacks against the window, rattling against the cool glass beneath his temple. Cormoran squints out the windscreen into the wan Afghani sun, diluted by a thin grey haze of smoke and everything the same uniform wash of beige and khaki.

"Robin…"

There is no truck to be seen, no children on the side of the road to wink and spare his life. But fear squeezes his chest tight and he leans forward, scanning the horizon line.

 _"Robin!_ "

Her bright hair spirals, the whole of her twisting in the seat as she whirls on him. " _Bloody hell – why can't you just shut up and trust me?!_ "

And he gapes at her, all furious eyes and trembling lips. Righteous in her indignation, her determination. She absolutely blazes with light, staring him down – looking at him, not looking at the road – and the engine gives a snarl as Robin grinds her foot down on the gas pedal, kicking up the dirt.

He says “I do, I do.” A frantic parody of the wedding vows exchanged upon the sunlit altar. “I – Robin, _brake_!”

There is no truck. No IED. It is _Charlotte_ in her wedding dress – straight out of the magazine photos – standing in the middle of the road.

Strike shouts. And Robin, mad competent Robin, wrenches the wheel around so that the tires scream and shudder through the hard-packed sand. He flails for the panic bar as the Rent-a-Car swings about, stopping short so that Cormoran – in the passenger’s seat – finds himself staring face-to-face with Charlotte out the passenger’s side window.

Plastered to the seat, Cormoran gasps precious breaths between the heavy, panicked pulses of his heartbeat. Barely able to focus with the adrenaline slopping through his veins, he stares up at the spectre of Charlotte, all hollow eyes and meanly smiling teeth. Manic.

She leans in close, puffs a breath of condensation on the glass between them.

Cormoran cannot look away, but somehow he knows – he just _knows_ – that the driver’s seat is empty. Robin is gone. He is alone.

Charlotte draws a crooked heart in the fog of her breath and he watches her lips move, hears the sharp, cruel sound of the word clear as a slap in his mind. The echo of a hundred old accusations, a thousand previous fights.

“ _Coward_.”

"Bunsen… _Bunsen_."

He lurches upright fast enough to bash his head on the car’s interior, and maybe he shouts and he most definitely swears, but for a moment Cormoran is in the Humvee in Afghanistan and in the Rent-a-Car with Robin and then he realizes it is Shanker who is in the driver’s seat, watching him warily with hands raised in supplication.

“Fuck,” Cormoran mutters, dragging a trembling hand down his face.

“Yeah,” Shanker agrees, eyeing him warily. “You good?”

Thrumming with panic, Cormoran forces himself to sit up, relax his hunched shoulders. He catches a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror – all wild, rolling eyes and ashen face. He nods, blowing out a sigh. “ _Yeah_. Yeah, I'm good.”

“All right, ‘cause we’re here.” Shanker dips his head, indicating the familiar façade of the Denmark Street office; the ever-shifting maze of traffic barricades, the music shop with the stenciled instruments in the windows, the club with its neon sign and the synth bass throbbing against the car’s windows. “That’s everythin’ then?”

Cormoran nods, his brain still rattled by the dream. _Just shut up and trust me. Coward._ “Yeah, that’s everything.” He pauses, hand on the latch. “Listen, Shanker – thanks. I mean it.”

“ _Nah_ ,” Shanker waves him off with a grimace. “Course you had to go. Tryin’ to get your Robin back weren’t you? She’s a good one.”

Cormoran manages to hide his wince, levering his stiff, heavy body from the cramped passenger’s seat. Foolish of him to go, the more foolish still to think that he would – what? Appear at the altar, beg her forgiveness? Ask her to return as his partner? And she would say ‘I do. I will.’ He could kick himself.

“Shanker.” Leaning back in through the open door, he fixes the man with a piercing look. “Make sure you return the bloody car.”

Shanker has the audacity to act affronted. “Whaddya take me for, Bunsen?”

Cormoran raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“ _Fine_.” Shanker deflates with a gusty sigh. “On me honor, the car’ll be back in the lot first thing in the morning. Night Bunsen.”

“G’night Shanker.”

Strike stands on the curb then, watching as the Rent-a-Car pulls away, skidding around the corner and out of sight. He holds no illusions of sleeping tonight, not with Charlotte’s old admonition still ringing alongside the wedding bells in his ears. Not with flutters of white organza and rose petals scattering across his eyelids every time he blinks.

 _What an idiot_ , he tells himself as he jangles the keys, stumps his way up the seemingly endless staircase – past the empty office, the shadow of Robin’s vacant desk just visible beyond the frosted glass of the door – to the attic flat. _What a bloody idiot_.

He makes it to the edge of the bed. Collapses in a heap.

The leg comes off unceremoniously, is discarded against the bedside table. And he is already thinking, planning; there is the business to attend to – rebuilding the client base, clearing his name… and Robin.

He calls Ilsa.

“ _It’s late, Cormoran_.” The admonition is gentle, though.

“I know. ‘M sorry, Ilsa.”

“ _You all right_?” A rustling across the line, Nick’s voice distant and sleepy through the receiver “ _izzat Oggy_?”

“I’m okay.” He scrubs a hand across his face, tries on a falsely casual tone. “Robin had her wedding today, up in Yorkshire.”

“ _Oh, Cormoran_.” It’s a soft sigh, frightfully sympathetic in a way that feels like a knife twisting in his guts. “ _You didn’t_ -?”

Suddenly he regrets calling. “Just drove up with Shanker to give her my best.” Ilsa is too sharp, has known him too long and too well. “I’m gonna offer her the job back, obviously, but the wedding didn’t seem the right time to do it – not since Matthew hates the work so much.”

“ _No_ ,” Ilsa agrees quietly. All of the sadness Strike doesn’t allow himself to feel is heavy in her voice. “ _No, of course you’re right._ ” Then, as though she’s just thought of it. “ _Listen, Corm, will you come for lunch with us tomorrow?_ ”

He can’t bear the thought of it. “I’m sorry, Ils,” he says “I can’t spare a minute away from the office now. After this last case it’s going to take every bit of doing to build the business back up.” And he’s rambling – giving excuses, and they both know it.

Ilsa does him the mercy of accepting it. “ _All right. But – Cormoran – let us know if you need anything, will you? Anything at all._ ”

He won’t. He will weather this one on his own, as is his wont. He always does. But he says “okay” and “thanks Ilsa” and finds himself waiting for the dawn hours nursing a bottle of Doom Bar and staring into the blue-black shadows at the far end of the flat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. I'm sorry. There's an excess of Matthew in this chapter. Gross.
> 
> A Note: Robin buys a copy of "The Godwulf Manuscript" which is a real novel by Robert B Parker, the first book in his private detective series The Spenser Novels. I read a lot of the Spenser Novels ages ago and when I first read Cuckoo's Calling I remember thinking that the two detectives had very much in common in terms of their tired, grumpy street-bruiser exteriors and learned, eloquent interiors. Unfortunately, Spenser lacks a Robin :(

Robin wakes in stages, always has; the sensory input fed in portions back to her slowly stirring brain. The honeyed sunlight against her eyelids, and her metatarsals aching from dancing in the high Jimmy Choos, and her left arm dead and heavy under Matt's slim torso.

He shifts beside her and she opens her eyes to the lush, late morning sunshine that fills their hotel room. The light catches the little rings of gold in Matt's hazel eyes, makes his curly tumult of bedhead shine.

"What?" A puzzled grin. He props himself up on one elbow to study her with those dark, burning eyes. He still hasn't told her what he's planned for their honeymoon.

Their honeymoon.

They are married, as of yesterday. A wedding and a white dress and vows said standing before the altar. _Married_.

Matt gives a nervous chuckle, the pucker of his eyebrows deepening. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

Robin can't help it. She squishes up her face, testing the word with a mischievous sort of grin. "Husband."

"Wife." He beams. All perfect white teeth. "My beautiful, lovely wife." Each compliment is punctuated by a kiss – to the pulse point below her ear, to the velvet-soft dip of skin between her breasts. And Robin lifts her hands to stroke the smooth planes of his back, the finely sculpted muscles of his shoulders, and catches sight of the wedding ring that now glitters on her slender left hand.

 _Married_ , she thinks. _I'm married to him. It's what I always wanted_. And she watches the delicate band of diamonds catch the light and form a thousand miniature rainbows as Matt kisses her. In the car to the airport, she raises her hand to the window and smiles to herself as she makes a dazzle of sunshine fractals dance on the suede interior.

Matt watches her from the corner of his eye, the silver wedding band bright around his own left ring finger, hands stiff at ten-and-two on the steering wheel as he steers their rented car through the chaos of airport traffic. His question, softly spoken, is unexpected. Catches Robin off guard. "Are you happy?"

She tosses back her long, bright spill of hair and says " _of course_. I just married the man I love and he's sweeping me away to god knows where for a fortnight – of course I'm happy, Matt. I'm the happiest I've ever been."

The line of his jaw softens. "Good." He parks the car, checks the return forms in the glove box twice, and finds Robin's face with tender eyes. "Good. That's all I want."

And he has guarded the secret of their destination jealously, dropping only breadcrumb hints about the climate – "somewhere warm" – and what to wear – "make sure to pack your bathing suit. Nothing too touristy. And an evening dress."

Now, Robin follows him into Leeds Bradford and finds herself studying the lists of departures as they wait to check their luggage and pass through security. Their flight leaves at 1:00, and instinctively she searches the board of departures, dismissing the ones that are listed for 12:30, for 2:00 – and Matt heaves their suitcases off the x-ray conveyor belt, pressing up behind her.

"So," he murmurs low in her ear "where do you think we're going, Rob?"

She studies the blinking lists of destinations, tosses a grin over her shoulder to her new husband. "Belfast."

He squeezes her around the middle, prompting "try again."

Robin guesses another wrong, ridiculous answer just to make him smile. She knows – it's obvious with the evidence before her, but she'll let him have this moment. "Jersey?"

"Think France, nude beaches, the Blue Coast – we're going to  _Nice_."

" _Matt_!" Robin beams, even as she thumps him on the arm. "I am _not_ visiting a nude beach! You're unbelievable."

He throws his head back and laughs, showing his molars. "Not even topless?"

"No!" But she's laughing too.

"You're depriving the world, Rob."

And because Matt had planned their itinerary down to the minute, they have a little under an hour before boarding to browse the shops on the second story of the airport. Straight-backed and looking satisfied with himself, he heads for the coffee kiosk, while Robin finds herself lugging the suitcases in the direction of the small airport bookshop. The bright covers and bold titles draw her eye, suggesting an offer of reading material for the plane, the languid hours ahead spent lounging on the beach.

Matt finds her with two books in hand, digging through her cavernous purse for change. "Found some light reading, then?" The books are detective fiction, commercial stuff with most of the cover taken up with the author's name – Parker – and he reads the summaries with the light in his eyes growing flatter and colder by the word. "Really, Rob?"

She plucks the latte from his hand, made just the way she likes it. "I didn't realize you were a literary critic now. It's just fun."

Matt scoffs. "It's not, Robin. It's bad airport fiction that reads like one of those fucking cases – I mean honestly. A private detective with a stupid name, a crime the cops have solved but he can't let it be put to rest? You're obsessing."

"I am not" Robin protests. _The Godwulf Manuscript_ – a small paperback – suddenly feels very heavy in her hand. "Matt, it's just a book." Obsessing, she thinks, would be purchasing one of the glossy copies of _Bobyx Mori_ which stares out at her from the display, still selling splendidly after it's posthumous release.

"The bastard fired you, Rob," Matt studies her over the lid of his iced chai. "And then still had the nerve to turn up at our wedding and try to ruin things."

 _Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good_.

A benediction. A blessing.

She had been _so glad_ to see him. His rough, kind face twinkling up at her from the rows of wedding guests – something had settled in her at the sight. Some unknown anxiety that had thinned the air in her lungs, made it harder to catch her breath as she had said her vows. Robin says "I don't see how knocking over a vase of roses constitutes a conspiracy to ruin our wedding, Matt."

And he sighs, handing her back the books with a disappointed sort of look. "I just – I didn't want to see you getting your hopes up again. _I know you, Robin_. And I know seeing him there your first thought was about going back to that bloody office and his shitty gumshoe job."

“Matt…”

"I know you enjoyed the work, but you need to let it go."

Robin tucks the books into her purse, out of sight. She can’t let it go. She just can’t. The work they did, the filing cabinets and the faint smell of coffee and cigarette smoke that pervaded the office, the peeling paint of the Denmark Street stairwell. Cormoran with his green eyes gleaming, laying out the evidence across the desktop and sitting back – lacing his fingers behind his head with a self-satisfied smirk – waiting for her to come to the right conclusion, guiding her keen eye and quick mind.

She says “I know” absently, mostly to appease the pout that lingers around Matthew’s cupid’s bow mouth, and floats alongside him through their unsettled sea of moodiness toward the departure gate. Neither one of them says another word about it, but when they are seated on the plane the books fail to make a reappearance from Robin’s bag.

But she does know. She knows that there is no letting go of this, not really. That the work has sunk its teeth into her. Knows that, hard as she might try, to rid herself of the investigative work, of Cormoran Strike and the very reshaping of her mind would be to carve a piece of herself away, bloody and painful.

And, even if Strike will not take her back into the office, will not have her as a partner, she has her training and her resourcefulness and the fond memories to turn over and over in her mind like talismans and she thanks god that Matthew cannot ask her to give that up, at least. She cannot pay that pound of flesh.

Matthew twines their fingers together and strokes his thumb over the facets of her rings so that the stones shine. “I love you, Rob,” he tells her, leaning close.

In the window seat, Robin leans her head against the glass as they rise into the clouds – watching the city below fade to mist fade to an expanse of endless blue. “I love you too,” she tells the warm presence against her shoulder. She tacks on “husband” with a faint, vague smile. Robin still can’t really believe it happened.

“ _Wife_.” Pleased as the cat that got the cream.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Warning for Wardle using a gay slur.
> 
> 2\. Sorry these chapter seem so darn short.
> 
> 3\. See if you can spot my joke that requires like three layers of meta-textual-analysis and some shifty-eyed squinting to interpret.

After Wardle stands before the inquisition of press mics and reads his statement clearing Strike from the murder of Kelsey Platt, the office receives a total of seven calls. One is from Lucy when his cell phone battery dies, demanding to know what exactly he’s been up to and if he’s all right and that he call her at once. One from a previous client looking to reinstate their contract after the bad press had sent them scarpering. Two from potential new clients. And three from members of the press demanding to know if Strike had really done it.

Cormoran gave those particular callers a bellowed "fuck off you bloody parasites" down the phone line and had to replace the desk phone after slamming the receiver too hard.

Everything he'd built with Rokeby’s loan. Everything Charlotte had told him he was foolish to attempt, had hated him for pursuing. Everything that Robin had helped him to grow and nurture and perfect – his dream realized and ripped out from under him. It stung. It stung like bitter-salt and it made him furious, and he wasn't going to let some shit like Donald fucking Laing have the better of him.

Not like this.

In the end he gave himself one day for misery. One day to rail against the injustice of his loss; to numb the wound with the slow application of several pints in the corner of the pub and then to sit – bleary-eyed and sniffling – at his desk, head bowed, and feel the horrible catch of his breath against his ribs. And then in the morning, he vomited it all up, choked on three dry paracetamol tablets and got to work, rubbing the crusts from his eyes.

He drowned the pain. He purged it. And he told himself he was the better for it.

In the three days since his return from Masham, he rebuilds the client base – it climbs from three to five. A divorcee gathering evidence in the custody battle for her children. Two suspicious partners wanting to know if their spouses are cheating. A man looking to trace the person who had catfished him online. A thin, fragile looking nineteen-year-old trying to find his biological parents.

Cormoran creates client files, snaps photos and hunts his way through a chaos of data, gumshoes his way around the city until his leg aches and he falls bonelessly onto the lumpy mattress in the attic flat at night – too tired to dream. But he will do this on his own, for now. Kindling the fragile, quiet flame of hope close to his chest all the while.

It can still be undone.

Two weeks is not so long.

A fortnight for a honeymoon, and then he will call. _Partners, yeah._

_Please?_

The only sounds in the office are construction work echoes and the occasional rise of an drum solo, a series of chords played clumsily on guitar from the instrument shop downstairs.

Two weeks feels like an eternity.

He has followed one of the cheating spouses from one end of the borough to the other, lingering to capture photographic evidence of the rendezvous, the ensuing tryst, the date afterward and all the blatant displays of affection exhibited by said cheating spouse throughout. The multitude of photos, and the fees his well-to-do wife is paying for them, will keep Cormoran in rent on the office for at least another three months.

His stump hurts, though, after the brisk tromp around the city, and he has carefully detached the prosthetic – leaning it against the metal filing cabinet for the time being, so that some of the soreness and fevered heat in the truncated right leg can begin to abate.

Of course, it’s the moment that he has the leg off that the door in the main office swings open. The poorly oiled hinges moan.

"Be with you in a sec," Cormoran calls, shifting around in the desk chair. “ _Shit_.”

And he's stretching to reach the bloody leg without capsizing the chair and spilling himself onto the floor when the droll voice floats through the office to him.

"Oh no, don't get up on my account."

Wardle appears around the partially open door and his eyes track from Cormoran – double over and leaning crookedly out of the desk chair – to his outstretched arm and the leg that rests against the filing cabinet.

Cormoran rolls his eyes, dragging the prosthetic limb under the desk. Out of the DI's line of sight, he rolls up the cuff of his trousers enough to shimmy the prosthesis back on. He keeps his face carefully blank, studying Wardle's reaction as he says "couldn't get up for you even if I wanted to, Wardle."

Wardle starts to arrange his dour face into something resembling an apology for the gaffe, but then he gets a glimpse of the mischief dancing in Strike's eyes and snorts, shaking his head instead. "Got a case for you, if you're up for it, Gooner."

Cormoran settles back in the chair, thick eyebrows creeping toward his hairline. "I dunno Wardle," he says "not sure I've got the time. I'm completely swamped with clients after you and the bloody press bungled Kelsey Platt and the Laing case so neatly."

"Don't be a prick," Wardle grouses, folding his lanky body into the client chair. He is wearing his usual all black from turtleneck to fashion trainers, and it leaves him looking grim. "I know we ballsed it up with the Laing case and, unfortunately, I owe you."

Cormoran's eyebrows climb higher.

Wardle shrugs his shoulders, the supple leather of his biker's jacket creaking. "You've taken a couple of hits, could probably use the work. Police aren't going to touch this case and I'd like a pair of eyes on it."

"I'm listening."

Wardle passes him the envelope – it's slim, not much inside. "Victim reports being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. He's not harassing or overtly threatening in any way that could warrant police involvement. Just following ‘em, lurking outside the home and workplace, leaving notes."

Cormoran digs into his pocket for the carton of cigarettes, setting one between his teeth. "What kind of notes?"

"Got one of them in there for you." Wardle taps the file. "Seemingly harmless – like I said, not outright threatening – but invasive."

Cupping his hands around the cigarette's flame, Cormoran nods – a quick bobbing of the dark, riotous head. “Okay. So what’s got you’re knickers in a twist?”

Reaching across the desk, Wardle flips the file open, tapping the photograph that’s been paper-clipped to the inside binding. “Oliver Lafitte. He’s a friend of the wife. The ex that’s stalking him is Andrew Breul.” The detective inspector sighs, slouching in the chair. His long mouth slouches too, a weary downcast look. “I pushed for the department to look into it, at least to send a bloody car by for his peace of mind. But him being a poofter, no one wants to touch the fucking case, poor bastard.”

And then Wardle sits back and folds up his arms, glowering and braced for the rejection, his square chin tilted defiantly.

“Christ Wardle,” Cormoran says “I’ll take your case. Jesus. You think I care who he sleeps with?”

Sweeping a hand over his slick, dark hair, Wardle blows out a gusty sigh fairly deflating with relief. “I’ve got his statement in the file, contact information, and what details I was able to get from our system on Breul.” He stands, one smooth unfolding of the long body, and says “thanks for this, Gooner. I’ll give Ollie a ring and let him know you’ll be in touch.”

And that would be the end of it, except Wardle pauses again in the doorway, executes a slow about-face on his bootheel.

“Where’s your girl? Robin?”

Cormoran’s head pops up from studying the file so fast he cricks his neck. “Robin’s not – she was my partner. _Is_ my partner.” Is she? Suddenly he finds himself fumbling with the words, language slippery and impossible as though he is three sheets to the wind. “Got married. She’s on her honeymoon right now.”

There’s no need for Wardle to know the rest.

“Good for her,” Wardle says with pursed lips. “Don’t lose that one, Gooner – she’s sharper than half the detectives in my precinct.”

He has to smile. “That she is.”

Two weeks.

What a mess.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for oblique reference to Robin's sexual assault and Matt being a pushy ass.

Matt does up the last four buttons of his shirt over raw chest and shoulders that sting the color of a hard slap. The material drags against his sunburn – the combined result of a misguided belief in his ability to tan and an arrogant disregard for sunscreen – and he hisses between his teeth. Their honeymoon is perfumed with the cool, medical smell of aloe.

Tomorrow, they fly back to England. A proper husband and wife with a beautiful wedding and incredible photos from their honeymoon; and Matt will show the rest of the firm the photograph of Robin in the sunlight and sea-spray and all the bastards in their austere suits and oxfords will tell him that he is the luckiest man in the world.

Much more liberal with her application of sunscreen than her husband, even Robin did not escape their beach-going unscathed. It suits her, though. Where Matt has been scrubbed raw and red by the sun, she is freckle-kissed and blushing across the caps of her shoulders and the bridge of her nose.

She sings to herself in the shower, invigorated by the fine sting of the spray against her pink sunburn. The last of the stubborn sand-grit makes a fine whirlpool around the drain and disappears. They find it everywhere – in their hair, in the bedsheets.

Matt had pressed her, on their third or fourth day in the sun and sand, his hair half-dry and salty after swimming. "Let's do it on the beach."

"You're mad," Robin had proclaimed.

He had kissed the corner of her mouth, the weight of him suddenly unbearable, and asked her "why not have a go at it right here? There's nowhere more beautiful." And Robin had felt herself becoming small, shrinking inward – horrible, horrible idea.

"Matt, people would see us." A thousand excellent protests that had nothing to do with the sour taste in her mouth.

"- we could come out at night so nobody'd see." He'd ignored the way her sunscreen-sticky skin had grown gooseflesh in spite of the warm air off the coast, let his hand wander too warm and too heavy through the water droplets on her bare belly. "Just you and me and the stars. The sound of the ocean."

Robin had squirmed away, shoving him lightly. "The sand _everywhere_?" Outside. Under the open, evening sky. Matthew above her, holding her – the weight of him – and she couldn't bear to think about it, her insides screwed up and acidic with the notion.

"C'mon, Rob-"

" _I said no_." Her sweet mouth had tightened furiously, lips trembling with the effort to keep the tears back. Stop it. Stop it. "Just leave it alone, Matt."

And he'd sat back finally, staring like he'd never seen her before – all wounded dark eyes and that frustrated voice saying "Jesus, Robin, it was just an idea."

She'd known that. She'd known he hadn't really meant anything by it. This was _Matt_. Her husband. "I know," Robin had murmured, pressing her fingertips hard against the purple-pink line of scar tissue along her forearm. "I'm sorry, I just – no public nudity, Matt. Okay?"

And let that be the end of it.

He'd fallen asleep in the sunshine, his handsome curly head resting in her lap, and Robin had settled the enormous, floppy sun hat on her head and slipped one of the pulpy crime novels from her beach bag to enjoy.

It'd been better quality than she'd expected from airport detective fiction. Too much brooding and far too many evocative descriptions of women's legs, but it was a smart mystery and Robin had gotten tangled up in the story, sifting through clues and suspects in search of answers. And she'd found herself missing London terribly. The cramped flat that Matthew remained so unimpressed with. The chipped up, half-demolished Denmark street. The music shop and the graphic designers' and Strike's own tired office with the peeling guitar murals and filing cabinets and the bedraggled, comfortable way the light had settled on everything.

She hopes he's remembered to water her little terra cotta pot of hardy mums in the window sill.

"Are you almost done, Rob?" Matthew's voice outside the bathroom door. "We're going to be late."

The last night of their honeymoon. He has it all planned to perfection – dinner, dancing, and this is why he'd asked her to bring the evening dress.

It's perfect. It's going to _be_ perfect. Absolute bliss.

Robin secures the last of the bobby pins in her hair – the faint sunburn on her neck stings too much to leave it loose around her shoulders – and calls "just a minute!"

The dress fits like it was made for her. A perfect, second skin the color of poisoned apples hanging low from her shoulders and falling over her hips – and she gasps, delighted. This is the first time she's put on the dress since she tried it on in the Vashti fitting room and felt the smooth slide of silk, so soft beneath her fingertips, slipping like water from the wrapping paper when Cormoran had gifted it to her with such a bashful, casual effort.

When she had turned from the mirror to find him, so badly out of place in the boutique, it had struck her; the look on his face. A kind of vague, awestruck gaping. That look had been nothing like the expression Matthew turns on her when she opens the bathroom door.

His eyebrows shoot upward, then make a vicious turn toward the bridge of his nose. His mouth – that smirking mouth that Robin loves so much – starts to fall open, and then it becomes a thin, brutal line. “Unbelievable” he says, but there is no wonder in his voice. No pleasure.

Unconsciously, the swan-line of Robin’s shoulders slumps. “Matt,” she says “what’s the matter. It’s just-”

He sighs, eyes rolling. “A whole closet full and you brought _that_ bloody dress.”

She’d shown it to him – just the once – after they’d closed the Lula Landry case. He’d been curious about the bag, she’d been thrilled by the beautiful gown and the high of solving the case and the permanence of her new position in the private detective’s office. Matt’s reaction had been much the same then.

Now, Robin feels incredible in the sleek green dress. It’s fine and expensive and something Venetia Hall would wear and she snaps back at him “well you don’t have to take that tone about it – it’s just a dress.”

“A dress that that…” Matt practically spits the words. “That _one-legged fuck_ saw fit to give you.”

Robin recoils from that, face hot with horror. Matthew has said all manner of things about Strike through the duration of their partnership, but never with such bitter vitriol. Never like he would spit the words in the other man’s face and kick him bloody. “It’s a dress that I feel beautiful in – that I wanted to wear to _look_ beautiful for you, Matt.” All of her carefully done mascara and powder is going to be ruined now.

And he says “look, okay Rob, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean it like that.” Reaching with gentle hands to take her, green dress and all, into his arms, folding their sunburned bodies together with hands avoiding shoulders and necks and upper arms. “You know that, right? I think you look beautiful. You do. You are beautiful – so, so gorgeous. Don’t you ever doubt that.”

“Why do you hate Cormoran so much?” It’s not the question she should be asking on her honeymoon. None of this is the way things should be happening on their honeymoon. But it slips out, and she can’t take it back.

The lean tendons and muscles of Matt’s arms tense a fraction around her. His words – when they come – are carefully measured, spoken to the crown of her bright head. “He put you in danger, Robin. The work you were doing was driving you crazy and it wasn’t safe and you got hurt because of it. You want me to like a man who let you keep on with that?” And then, done with the matter, he presses a kiss to the smooth chignon of her hair, and says “we’re going to be late for the reservation.”

Dinner is an affair of few words. Robin picks at her shellfish, twirls noodles on the fork, and claims a headache from the wine to avoid more than a few passes across the checkerboard dance floor with her stiff-jawed husband.

Robin listens to the hisses and curses that accompany Matthew peeling himself – and several layers of burnt skin – out of the dress shirt as she folds the smooth, green Vashti dress into her suitcase. “Going to have a soak.”

“Suit yourself.”

This is not the way their honeymoon was meant to end.

She fills the tub with steaming water, taking full advantage of the rose-scented bath oil on the sideboard, and when the perfume-smell has permeated the creamy, clean-lit bathroom and there are enough bubbles to disappear in Robin sinks into the tub and leans her head back against the tile.

All of their happy photos, sunny and brilliant with big smiles and cheesy romantic kisses. Look what we’re doing, where we’ve gone, how in love we are. Sent in text messages to her parents, posted to the Facebook album. And she cannot help the gnawing worm of guilt that twists in her and eats her hollow from the inside out.

He came to the wedding, she thinks. Bruised and busted up, and after that disastrous falling-out between them.

_Would you be angry if I went back to the office, Matt? If I accepted the job with Strike again?_

Stupid. Foolishness. He hadn’t even asked.

_I love this work. I love it – it’s what I’m meant to be doing. It’s what I’m good at._

She sinks deeper into the tub until the mountainous landscape of bubbles tickles her nose. Investigative work is in her marrow now. Like a cancer, Matt would tell her.

_Cormoran, I-_

So many ways to end that sentence.

_I’m sorry._

_I want the job back._

_I miss you._

Not thoughts to be considering on a honeymoon.

When she finally crawls into the over-large hotel bed beside Matt, he does not make room for her against his side the way he normally does. She sleeps with her back to him, smelling of roses, dreaming of surveillance conducted on the busy streets of London – following a faceless, hunch-shouldered body through the crowds.

Neither one of them sleeps well.


	5. Chapter 5

Oliver Lafitte is thirty-two years old, bespectacled, and works collections for a post-modern art gallery running out of a repurposed industrial warehouse. Wardle has included one of the gallery's business cards – printed on thick, mocha-colored stock – in his file, and Cormoran clicks through views of light slanting through high up windows, gallery space winding around the larger, more aesthetic scraps of the warehouse's old life.

There are spindly, twisting sculptures the texture of cottage cheese. Stretched and malformed bodies constructed out of metals. Abstract things done in string and paste and what he thinks might be thumbtacks. Heavy, impressionist portraits with the impasto laid on thick like swaths of frosting. Torn photograph collages.

Weird things. Oddly fascinating.

It's the collection of Past Exhibitions that catches his eye. A single name among the hyperlinks of previous artists and exhibitors; _Andy Breul – Unobtrusive_.

Another cigarette butt into the ashtray.

Cormoran dials the mobile number in the file, reading through the highlighted portions of the statement from Wardle, the notes and additional questions scribbled in the margins.

" _This is Oliver Lafitte_?" The voice is hesitant, almost whispering.

"Oliver, hi – Cormoran Strike." He doesn't get out any more than that before the phone line crackles with a massive sigh of relief, Lafitte practically stumbling over himself to agree and explain and thank Strike for calling.

" _Yeah_!" Half-dumbfounded. " _Yeah, Eric said you'd call – look, thank you for taking the case. I... The police wouldn't believe me, and I don't know what to do_..."

Cormoran slumps in the desk chair, resting his elbows on the desk. "I do think I can help you, Mr. Lafitte."

" _Oliver, please. Not even the folks at work call me Mr. Lafitte_."

"All right, then. Oliver." He speaks to the empty client chair with kind eyes, the care-lines of his face smoothed by patience, as though Ollie were sat directly across from him with his shattered nerves and his babbling voice in Cormoran's ear. "Is there somewhere I can meet you, ask you some questions about Andrew and the stalking?"

" _Can you be discreet? I don't_..." An audible swallow. " _I have tried_ everything _I can think of, but he knows where I go. What I do_."

"I understand," Cormoran assures him, ruffling a hand over his hair. "I know a place not far from you. Hole in the wall. How's three o'clock?"

He is seated in the corner alcove of Marmalade at just after two-thirty, poking through his chips and swilling coffee that could be cut with a knife. Plenty of time for the necessary preparations to have been made.

It is, of course, the moment that he has a mouthful of fried potato that Oliver Lafitte chooses to come through the door, nervy and flustered and blinking fast. Cormoran stands and Oliver spots him at once, stalking over with a graceless, peevish look.

He gives Strike a quick once-over, taking in the sheer size of him – sticking out like a sore thumb with his height and breadth expanded by the comfortable greatcoat – the wreck of his hair and the creases in his shirt with blue eyes behind the spectacles as sharp as if they were analyzing a new Alberto Giacometti for signs of forgery. "Oh, yeah," Oliver says at last. "You're the picture of discretion, you."

"I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor." Cormoran settles back into the booth, gesturing for Oliver to join him at the table. Then, with the seriousness Lafitte deserves, he explains. "We're seated away from the window views, we entered separately, I have a clear sightline of the entire room, and I've slipped the hostess at the door twenty quid to keep an eye out for your ex. Relax."

Lafitte wears his hair in one of the artsy, on-trend styles – all shaved around the sides and too long and fluffy on top – that Cormoran thinks look secretly thinks look like a fight lost with a hedge trimmer, but he has to acknowledge that he often doesn't manage to look much better. At least Oliver Lafitte's hair is meant to be doing that. The man combs his fingers through it a few times, fidgeting in the seat, before he manages to settle himself enough to order tea and toast.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs to the tabletop. "I'm sorry, this is all just..."

Cormoran takes pity on him. "Breul is your ex-boyfriend, correct? How long were you two together?"

"About two years?" Oliver considers this, then nods. "Yeah. That's right. He came to one of the gallery shows and we hit it off – he had an incredible eye for finding beauty in the ordinary. We talked for hours. I almost forgot I was supervising a show that night. And then he did his own show for us – _Unobtrusive_ , with the photographs – and it was a huge success, and he seemed so normal." He tilts his head to the side at that, chuckling to himself. "I mean, as normal as an artist can be, really."

"He was never possessive?" Cormoran traces a line through the chip oil with a potato wedge. "Never played with your emotions or dismissed your feelings, tried to mislead your recollections of events?"

Oliver shrinks. One hand comes up to scratch at the fine stubble along his jaw. "I don't know," he mumbles. Strike considers that a likely 'yes'. "Maybe? I mean, we'd fight sometimes – he'd say I was paying too much attention to other artists, accuse me of sleeping with them. But that was my job, wasn't it? And I never slept with anyone else. I wouldn't cheat on him."

Cormoran waits.

"He'd… I don't know, it sounds stupid. Artists are just like that, you know? Sometimes Andy would ignore me for days, wouldn't answer my calls, would refuse to see me. If I showed up at his flat, he'd scream at me and kick me out – but then he'd be so apologetic later. Just the artistic process." Oliver shrugs, sipping his tea. "I was getting in the way of his creative periods. But, if I ever didn't answer a call or text… If I wasn't home when he popped round…"

"Got hell to pay?" Cormoran can imagine the rest. Has seen it often enough. Remembers the endless logs of missed calls and increasingly furious, hysterical voicemails from Charlotte – the unease that had gnawed away at him when her apologies had crumbled his hastily pitched barricades. And he fills it in when Oliver swallows a scalding mouthful of tea too fast and makes a helpless gesture, unable or unwilling to continue. "When did you stop seeing Andy?"

"Four months ago. I just couldn't deal with it anymore."

"The stalking started soon after?"

Oliver nods hard. "I thought it was all over and done, and then about four, maybe five, weeks after I'd broken things off with him I found the first note in my mailbox. It was a photograph – I'd been talking to a man in the coffee queue. Just chatting. And he'd somehow photographed us and written on the back _already moved on have you? This one's no good_."

Cormoran takes the opportunity to produce the note that Wardle had left in the file for him, carefully enfolded in a clear evidence bag. "Are all the notes like this? A photograph with a message on the back?"

"Yeah." Oliver takes it from him with trembling fingers.

A peeping Tom's view through a kitchen window, all black cabinetry and the blurred curve of the faucet in the left-hand corner of the frame. The curve of Oliver's spine, bent over and leaning deep into the fridge. The back of the note reads: _don't forget to buy more soy milk, Ollie my love. You're running low_.

"I've seen him a few times, but he won't approach me in public." Oliver slouches in the chair, frustrated and furious. "He just… watches. I want him to go away – just… can you make him go away?"

Strike sits forward with his elbows on the table, fixing Oliver with a solemn look. "What I can do, is I can gather irrefutable evidence that he's stalking you. Enough to make a solid case for the police – one they won't be able to ignore."

"I… I thought." Oliver blinks at him, mouth working silently to form a coherent sentence. "You won't talk to Andy then? Y'know… _persuade_ him to leave me alone?"

Cormoran takes the meaning clearly. He drags a hand through his hair, ducking his head to hide what he is sure must be a truly incredulous expression. _Jesus Christ, Wardle, what the hell did you tell this poor dumb bastard?_ "Honestly, I don't expect talking to him is going to have any real benefit, and I'm not in the habit of racking up assault charges."

"Oh." Oliver winces. "Oh, I just assumed…" He makes a kind of useless gesture to encompass the rough-hewn expanse of private detective sat across from him.

"No." Cormoran breathes out. The single syllable manages to sound like _fucking hell_ and _Jesus Bloody Christ_ at the same time. "'fraid not. I _will_ do what I can to help you feel safe though, Oliver. Your flat can be made more secure, we can make it harder for him to stalk you. Okay?"

Oliver considers this for a long, silent moment. Then he nods. "Okay."

When Cormoran leaves the diner, he finds himself getting on to the wrong line at the Tube station. Except, holding on to the overhead strap, swaying with the mass of bodies pressed into the car, he knows there is nothing wrong about the route he has taken. It is perfectly intentional, much as he would like to pretend otherwise.

Robin's existence beyond the office is a foreign one to him – her neighborhood, the shared flat with Matthew a place where he is unwelcome. An eyesore. An intrusion. Of course that is never so much the way Robin would have him see it, but there is nevertheless a fragile line, drawn after the disastrous attempt she'd arranged at drinks. Half self-imposed for sanity's sake by Cormoran himself.

He knows the route. Sets his toe against the line when he pauses at the street corner, the façade of the new Mr. and Mrs. Cunliffe's narrow flat just visible from his vantage point. The Range Rover, with it's old-mud paint color and sturdy chassis, hulks in the parking space on the street. And, when he limps another few steps along the block to bring the face of the flat to a clearer angle, the glow of lights behind the thin curtains brings a welcome rush of relief singing through his blood.

Robin is here. She is back and close at hand. And it is dangerous of him, stupid to be playing this game – standing on her street corner and dialing her number on his mobile like some hopeless sop. But before he can press the call button, the screen is lit up – vibrating in his hand – with insistent demands for an answer from Lucy.

He can't keep avoiding her forever. He answers the call.

"Hullo, Luce."

" _Cormoran Blue Strike_!" Oh, that's really bad. Lucy only brings out the full name in a true fury. She's quiet, the kids must be in bed – fear of waking them the only thing keeping Lucy's wrath in check – because despite the whisper, her voice climbs higher, growing more shrill and hysteric with each octave. " _I can't believe you wouldn't call me! What_ happened _?!_ "

And he turns away from the Flat Cunliffe, trying to get a word in edgewise "Lucy – Luce, I swear I was going to call you. _Lucy_ -" He doesn't manage any more than that before she bursts into tears.

" _There were all sorts of terrible things about you on the news – saying that you'd been mixed up in a murder investigation, Stick_ ," she hiccups. " _That someone had sent you a leg in the post. That you were a_ suspect?"

He craves a cigarette, the thick weight of the smoke in his lungs and the nicotine hum, but he can't console his half-sister, light up, and keep limping down the road all at the same time. And Lucy has a sixth sense for these things. She'll know the minute it's between his teeth and then she'll start in on him about his terrible habit and the likelihood that he'll die of lung cancer and he just doesn't have it in himself to manage that tonight.

"It was a mistake, Lucy," he reassures her as he shuffles along the avenue. "The investigators got it wrong. There was an old case from RMP – someone wanting to frame me. I promise, Lucy, everything is fine. You read the papers, there was a press release. I was cleared of everything, they admitted it was a wrong line of inquiry, and I caught the man who did it.”

“ _But you_ were _sent a leg, Cormoran_.”

He sighs. “Yes, Lucy, I was sent a leg. It was a crude and ugly attempt by a psychopath to get inside my head. He sent me a leg, he used Blue Oyster Cult lyrics, he harassed and attacked my partner, and I made sure to beat the shit out of him before I turned him over to the police – is there anything else you’d like to know?”

It’s nasty of him, he knows it. Too much bitterness and bile rising up inside of him and he’s taken it out on Lucy who means well in spite of her hysterics and neuroses. Lucy, his little sister who loves him dearly; who clung with skinny arms around his middle and who had always come to him for skinned knees and challenging math problems.

“I’m sorry, Luce,” he mumbles. Deflating. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair of me. I should’ve called you sooner – I’m just…” Avoiding things. “Trying to get the world tilted back on its axis right now. Okay?”

Lucy sniffles at him.

He drags his free hand down his face, blinking helplessly up at the sky that has started to dim, growing blue and purple like the beginnings of a bruise. “It was a bad case, Lucy. Things have been shaken up, and I’m trying to rebuild the business, regain client trust…”

“ _I was so worried, Stick_.”

“I know,” he says. “Lucy, I know.”

It takes the rest of the journey home to ease her frayed and anxious nerves, turning the conversation carefully to Lucy and her husband, to Strike’s young nephews and their marks in school, their mediocre performances in sports – none of which he really cares to hear about. But reciting the stories to her half-brother soothes Lucy back into complacency, drawing her away from visions of severed legs and violent murders to the mundanities of life.

By the time he manages to get her off the line, Cormoran wants to throw his phone in the Thames, chain smoke the entire package of cigarettes in his coat pocket, and collapse onto his cot bed. He forgets entirely about calling Robin.


	6. Chapter 6

Cormoran spends the morning with Shiloh – the nineteen-year-old client looking to trace his birth parents. It's not a conversation he relishes having, and selfishly he wishes for Robin to be there at the front desk, a barrier of sunshine and kind understanding and absolute goodness to counter the roughness of his voice, the crudeness of the file in his hands, the sad truths he hands over to poor, thin Shiloh.

He needs her back. There's no point in going this alone – he just can't do it.

"Have you found them?" The testosterone makes Shiloh's voice crack. Huddled in the client chair in his overlarge hoodie, the boy looks like a stiff wind might do him in. The fragile skin beneath his eyes is bruised, his buzzed head vulnerable and small. "My parents?"

Cormoran nods, offering him the file. "I have."

Hollow-eyed, Shiloh reaches across the desk to take the file folder from him. He hasn't stopped sniffling with post-nasal drip since he stepped into the office. "Are they -?" He blinks up at Cormoran, bent in half with terrible posture. "Is it bad?"

"No." Cormoran considers all the varieties of 'bad' and decides that, no the news he has for Shiloh is not really bad at all. "It's not so bad." He points out the typed information in the file, the photograph of a woman with Shiloh's faded coloring. "Your mother, Sara Cavanaugh. Got pregnant as a teenager; her parents made her give the baby – you – up to foster care at the hospital. Your father, John Morse, didn't know she was pregnant."

Shiloh's thin lips start to tremble.

Cormoran feels clumsy, laying this out to a teenager. He has no idea how to make this comforting, how to reassure the boy that these facts – his meager history – are not so grim. _Christ, Robin, I need you_. "John died three years ago," he soldiers on. "But Sara – your mother – is married, with two young daughters. Your half-sisters; Clara and Alanna." There are pictures in the file. Cormoran spots the unease that crawls across Shiloh's face. "I took the liberty of contacting your mother," he tells the boy. "She'd like to meet you."

And poor Shiloh just about falls out of the chair. "But…" he stammers. "But, I… does she know…?"

Cormoran pushes to his feet, tapping the phone number that's been highlighted in his case summary within the file. "She knows." He'll count this one as a win. It isn't perfect, but it's hopeful, and that's at least a start. "Says she likes the idea of a son."

Shiloh sobs a little bit, wet and snotty in the sleeves of his large hoodie. Scrubbing at his watery eyes, he manages a fragile laugh and a "thanks, Mr. Strike." He tucks the folder close to his chest. "How – how much do I owe you?"

" _Christ_." Cormoran shakes his head, sighing. "I don't want your money, Shiloh. You don't owe me anything for this."

"But…"

Cormoran makes his eyes wide, shuffling around the desk to reach for his coat. It's almost time to catch Cheating Spouse #1 getting off work. He has to make up for missing yesterday's surveillance to meet with Oliver. "Seriously. This is my good deed for the month – now scoot out of my office so I can lock up, 'kay?"

Shiloh scarpers.

Lingering in the dusty sunshine that spills through the front office, Cormoran finds himself remembering to water the little potted plant on the window sill for the first time in a week before he turns himself to the task of poking hopelessly at the phone on Robin's desk.

Robin's desk. Gone for over a month now – the surface of the desk collecting a thin patina of dust – and still it's hers. Won't ever be anyone else's if he has his way.

Strike prods a few buttons on the desk phone. It beeps mournfully back at him. He's watched Robin do this a thousand times, forwarding the calls to her mobile when she's gone out on surveillance. But he'll be damned if he has the first clue how to go about it. She'd just... _known_ how to do these things.

"Unbelievable," he mutters, taking another whack at the phone. It seems pointless. There isn't anyone likely to call. "Bloody thing."

Eventually, he thinks he has it working and he has only slammed the receiver twice and the whole thing feels very stupid and childish and Cormoran leaves the office before things can get much more unfortunate.

Denmark Street is a chaos of noise and construction; orange traffic barrels everywhere, cordoning off large sections of the street. The sound of the jackhammers sets his teeth on edge, and he limps faster, glad to be rid of the sound and lost among the London shuffle.

Slipping his cell phone from the pocket of his coat, he taps up Robin's number without looking, holds it to his ear as he walks.

The phone rings once.

" _Hi, this is Robin Ellacott, sorry I missed your call. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can_."

Damn.

"Robin, it's me." He hesitates. "We need to talk. Give me a call when you get this?"

"They still haven't filled that HR position, you know."

Perched in the corner of the sofa with her feet tucked under her, Robin frowns up from her book and says "what do you mean?"

"The position you interviewed for." Matt leans his elbows on the countertop, addressing her from the kitchen. "They never filled it – the posting's still up on the job site." He fidgets with the French press. A whole new set of upgraded coffee-making tools he barely knows how to use, acquired after Wardle and the forensics team had apologetically removed the finger-bearing appliance from their flat.

Robin rearranges herself; sets a bookmark in her psychology texts, shifts her legs so that she is sitting cross-legged on the couch cushion. She leans one elbow on the plush armrest, cupping her chin in her hand. "Are you job-hunting for me now, Matt?" Her voice is light, amused, but there's a sour note curling in her belly.

_It's all a bit Roger Rabbit._

He'd hated every minute of her working for Strike.

_That one-legged fuck._

Why hadn't Cormoran at least called?

 _A private detective with a stupid name_.

She wanted to go back. She wanted. She wanted…

Matt shrugs, watching her with those inscrutable dark eyes as he adds creamer to the coffee. "It's worth thinking about, isn't it? I mean, they were ready to take you on the first time. If they're still looking to hire, why not? You'll want to get started working again soon."

Robin stares back at him, the storm-doors shuttering quick and hard over the secret, protected place in her heart. It leaves her cold. He doesn't even ask. She settles for making agreeable, noncommittal noises and says "speaking of working – it's a Saturday, why do you have to go in to the office?"

"I'm not going to the office," he reminds her with a sigh. "It's a big luncheon with the firm members and some potential clients. I need to get my name in with them, show my face – it could mean major contracts."

"All right, all right." Robin smiles and waves him over, catching hold of his tie when he bends down to kiss her goodbye. "You'd better be sure this is done up correctly then," she teases him, straightening the knot.

When Matt has been seen out the door, she sits by herself for a long while in the flat and considers things. Curses Cormoran and decides to take the initiative herself. She finds herself dialing the office number instead of his direct line, something she has imagined doing for weeks now – wondering if there will be a strange new voice at the other end of the line to answer pleasantly " _Cormoran Strike's office_."

Instead, she finds herself listening to her own voice on the ansaphone recording – set up after she'd realized that Strike had been relying on the automated message that only relayed their number and the knowledge that _the individual they were trying to reach was unavailable_.

Robin drags a hand through her hair, lifting the strands in a cascade off her neck as she listens to her own bright voice declare them both "out of the office and unavailable to assist you at this time." She mumbles along. "Leave your name and number and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks."

She doesn't leave a message. Instead, she hangs up and scrolls in search of Cormoran's cell phone number in her contacts.

 _Cormoran, I want to come back to work. I promise I'll play by the rules this time. I just – you understand, I_ had _to_ …

A busy signal.

" _I called a locksmith around like you suggested and had all the doors and windows changed and I_ –"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Hang on, Ollie." Strike pulls the phone away from his ear, keeping an eye on the cheating husband he's been following discreetly, as he checks the device. A waiting call – _Robin_. And there's a rush of warmth through is blood at just the sight of her name on the caller ID in clean white letters. But Oliver Lafitte is still gibbering into the phone, and Cormoran hears the words " _another photograph_ " and " _broke into the house_ " and he has to hit 'reject call' and promise himself to call Robin as soon as this is all over.

He says "slow down, Oliver, say that again. There's another photograph?"

" _Yes! I just said – I've had all the locks changed on the flat; doors, windows, everything. But I came home and there's a photograph sitting_ on my bed _with a note on the back. He shouldn't have been able to get in if the locks were changed! How is this happening?_ " And Oliver sounds like he just might go to pieces on the phone. " _Strike, you said – you said it would be okay_."

Cheating spouses be damned. Infidelity can wait a day.

Cormoran makes an abrupt about-face in the middle of the sidewalk. "It's all right, Ollie. Are you in the flat right now? I'm coming over straightaway. Did you touch the photograph?"

" _Should I not have_?"

"It's okay. Doesn't matter." Cormoran wonders if Wardle will be able to convince the uniforms it's worth their time to investigate this as a B&E at the very least. "I'm on my way over. We'll handle it. What's the note this time?"

He has the chance to scrutinize it properly when he is standing in the spacious living room of Oliver Lafitte's ground floor flat. Everything is monochrome black-and-white and slick and Cormoran is wary of so much as bumping his toe against the coffee table. Oliver flaps his hands at him until he sits on the amoeba-shaped sofa, though. So sit he does.

In the photograph, Oliver stands in a packed Tube carriage, leaning full-bodied against the post. He is dressed in the same clothes he met Cormoran in at Marmalade, gazing heavy-lidded at his phone screen.

The back of the photograph reads, _don't play games, darling Ollie. You know I'm a sore loser, and you don't know the rules_.

"How ya doin', Ollie?" It turns out Wardle had managed to put up enough of a fuss to get a crime scene team out to the flat, and the DI gives Oliver a brief squeeze before turning to peer over Cormoran's shoulder at the photograph in its evidence bag. "What've you got?"

Cormoran glances up at him. "Landlady let Breul in. They lived here together for years, he was a familiar face to her – she hadn't realized Andy and Oliver had split. Didn't see the harm in letting him up when he said he hadn't gotten his new set of keys yet."

"You're kidding me."

Strike spreads his hands in a helpless gesture. _What can you do_?

“Well, we aren’t going to be able to bring him in on this,” Wardle sighs. His already grim face gets even more sour-looking. “Maybe it’s a trespassing charge, but I don’t know that it’d be enough to stick. Not properly.”

Oliver plucks his glasses from his face, scrubbing at his eyes. “God,” he whispers. Hoarse. “God, I can’t live like this.”

Cormoran stares up at them both from his seat on the couch, sober-eyed. “Look,” he says. “A few weeks – that’s all. I know you’re frightened. But I swear, Oliver, we’ll keep you safe and we’ll get the proper evidence we need to give you an airtight case to take to the police.”

“You’re sure?” Oliver wavers, looking from Wardle to Cormoran and back again.

Wardle says “he’s a mad bastard, but I trust him, Ollie.”

“All right…” A swallow that jerks his Adam’s apple hard. “Yeah. All right. Few more weeks.”

“I’ll courier a copy of the scene report over to you,” Wardle tells Strike when they step out onto the stoop with their cigarettes and grey, uneasy shop talk where Oliver is less likely to overhear. “I’m worried about Ollie. He’s a nervous type. This isn’t good for him.”

Cormoran tosses aside his fizzled-out match, nodding an agreement. “Two weeks. Breul’s never going to break pattern unless we get him pissed – we need to draw him out.”

“You want to use Ollie as bait?”

“I dunno yet.”

“ _Christ_.”

“Yeah.”

Cormoran takes a long, deep drag at the filter of the cigarette. “Y’know, he got it into his mind that I was going to knock Breul about as a means of _persuading_ him to quit the stalking.”

Wardle snorts. It’s only justice that he ends up choking on the cigarette smoke.


	7. Chapter 7

It isn't until the next day, when he is hunkered discreetly on a park bench watching the door of the walkup that Cheating Spouse #2 disappeared into that Cormoran gets the chance to ring Robin again.

He finds her rejected call from yesterday – hits 'redial'.

One ring.

" _Hi, this is Robin Ellacott, sorry I missed your call. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can_."

Cormoran makes an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, shifting his weight on the unforgiving surface of the bench. His ass has started to go numb. And – it isn't like Robin at all, she was never so bitter, so petty. But it's the slight, instinctive curling of unease in his gut that settles it; that instinct has saved his life, has built his career. Cormoran has never not trusted it.

Just to be sure, he calls one more time.

It rings once, and then Robin addresses him sweetly from the recording.

She's blocked his number.

Charlotte had done it before – numerous times during their on-again, off-again spats. Would threaten and scream and cry and then inflict that horrible, dreadful silence on him. Leave him to the ever tightening death spiral of his own mind and the what if thoughts, the will she really do it thoughts, the anger giving way to fear thoughts that would leave him wrecked and ready for her to ravage all over again when she walked back through the door.

So many nights chain-smoking his way through packs of cigarettes, shouting himself hoarse on the phone. One ring. " _You've reached Charlotte Campbell's phone. Leave a message_." And he had. Left message after message because he knew she was listening to them all, knew she was checking the inbox – begging her not to make good on her threats.

"Shit."

He drags a shaking hand through his hair, considering. Why would Robin bother calling then, if she'd blocked his number? And she'd seemed so genuinely pleased to see him at the wedding – if she had been furious enough to cut off contact, certainly a woman like Robin Venetia Ellacott would not have hesitated to give him what-for for showing up uninvited.

Cormoran glances up at the door to the walkup again. Still no sign of the Cheating Spouse. He frowns back down at the phone screen, and " _shit_."

That fucker.

Of course. Matthew. Judgmental, shiny-faced, carefully polished Matthew with his cool looks and the hint of cruelty in his mouth. The trophy boy. Strike's fingers twitch, metacarpals creaking when they curl and clench into a fist.

And he thinks _it isn't any of my business_. But… _she has to know – about Matthew about what I said about the job_. And also, _I just have to talk to her_. _It can't end like it did_.

He thumbs at the email app in the corner of the screen.

Is Matthew reading her emails? If he's monitoring the calls, it's a possibility. Cormoran knows just how easily he could manage it; joint accounts, knowledge of one another's passwords, the new ability to clone phones and all the manner of discrete spyware one could buy off the internet nowadays. Innumerable ways to invade another person's privacy – especially the ones who loved you and had already let you in.

A false account? Innocuous, one only Robin would recognize the significance of.

 _How do you feel about identity theft_? He sets it up, typing fumble-thumbed on the phone's keyboard. Rochelle Ashlee – he can hear her affected accents, sees her in his mind's eye spinning slowly in the office chair with the phone pinned between ear and shoulder as she grimaces at him. The email address he registers as hatherill123@mail.co.uk.

And he's halfway through picking out a badly punctuated 'I'm around, want to get coffee?' – casual, inconspicuous – when he glances up again and spots Cheating Spouse #2 already halfway down the block.

" _Shiiiiiit_."

The game is a-fucking-foot, and he only has one to get along on. He shoves the phone into the pocket of his trousers and takes off limping across the park, scattering a handful of startled pigeons in his wake.

Cormoran takes the Tube back to Denmark Street once his mark has been discreetly delivered to the front of the slick, towering office building. His knee throbs – not the hot, sharp throb of a fresh injury, some new insult delivered unto his battered stump. This is the old pain, the kind he has grown used to – the grinding in his bones, the creak of tendons and ligaments that are just too sore.

He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the carriage window so that the vibrations rattle in his skull. When he gets back to the office, he will finish the email to Robin.

There are too many bloody stairs.

Cormoran feels heavy and slow – clumsy – as he shuffles his way up each step, one hand on the bannister, the other braced against the wall. It's slow going, the process of hauling himself up the flights to his office. Gives him plenty of time to study the photograph that's been taped to the warped glass of his office door, right over the nameplate.

"Well, fuck."

The photograph has caught Strike, full-bodied standing in the doorway of Oliver’s flat. It’s nothing like one of the artless paparazzi photos that litter magazines – stars ducking in and out of crowds and cabs and venues, half-blinded and startled and caught gracelessly in motion. No, what was it Oliver had said about Breul’s ability to find beauty in the ordinary? He’s caught the angle just so, managed to get the bulk of Cormoran perfectly framed in the doorway, captured his half-turn in the halo of trailing cigarette smoke to call after Wardle in just the right shadowed light-and-contrast way.

It could be a piece hanging in a gallery somewhere, even with the message scrawled across the back of the glossy photo paper.

 _You’re only making things worse for Oliver. Stay out of it_.

He rips the photograph down, dialing Lafitte with one hand as he unlocks the office door with the other. The phone rings. And rings. And Cormoran barrels into his office without bothering to shut the door behind him, tossing the photograph down on the desk. “Pick up the bloody phone Oliver” he implores, pacing in the strange red lamplight that suffuses the private inner office space. “Pick up.”

“ _This is Oliver Lafitte-”_

“Yeah, it’s Strike.” His interruption is breathless. Impatient. “Have you had any more photographs from Breul?”

“ _No – not as far as I… I’ve been at the gallery all day prepping for our upcoming exhibition_.” There’s an anxious uptick to Oliver’s voice, muffled chaos in the background. “ _Why? Has something – oh hold on. We’re only using those three from Fisher’s Deconstructed Portrait Collection – has something happened_?”

Back and forth Cormoran goes. His uneven step will wear a groove in the floor if he isn’t careful – but there’s something there… Something. “I’ve just had a note delivered to my office,” he tells Lafitte as casually as he can. No sense inciting the man to panic just yet. “You said this exhibition at the gallery was…?”

“ _A celebration of some of our past collaborators in avant garde photography and their works_ ,” Oliver is quick to jump on the topic. “ _Major exhibitionists. But – you said you’d received a note? At your workplace – how did Andy know_ …?”

“He’s stalking you, Oliver.”

“ _Right_.” Lafitte deflates.

Cormoran sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. There’s the beginnings of a headache starting there. “ _He was there when Wardle and I were at the flat – I couldn’t tell you where he was watching you from. If he’s got the right photography equipment, nice strong lens, he could easily have been a good distance away and got a clean view of the comings and goings without us being any the wiser_.” And then he stops, mid-pace. Photo-lenses. Photographs. The collages. “Hang on – Oliver. This exhibition of yours, how many artists are presenting work?”

For a moment, Oliver sputters on the other end of the line, lost to the change of direction. “ _I don’t see…? There’s six. Why?_ ”

“Who?”

“ _Well, there’s Mark Rochford – he does incredible erotic photography shot through a pinhole camera, meant to capture the idea of the Peeping Tom. And there’s Claire Fisher who does the Deconstructed Portraits_ …”

And those are what Strike remembers. The photographed faces torn apart and reassembled over their models with a strikingly vacant, vulnerable look. The name listed under Past Exhibitions  where he had found Andy Breul’s _Unobtrusive_. “All right, okay.” Cormoran doesn’t have time for Oliver to gush about each of his artist’s collections, not with the ideas forming and reforming in his mind as they speak. “You’re not exhibiting Breul’s collection, though.”

“ _No. We – well,_ I _– thought it best not to. Considering the circumstances_.”

“That’s fine,” Cormoran assures him. “That’s fine. I think you’re guaranteed he’ll turn up regardless as long as you’re there. The exhibition’s two weeks from now, yeah?”

“ _Yes – but, Strike, I don’t_ want _him to show up_.”

Cormoran sighs. “I know. But he’s going to regardless. And you’ll have witnesses and security cameras and a very public space in which you can make it known how unwelcome his presence is, especially if he causes a problem. That gallery is your space, Ollie. Not his.”

Hesitation.

“Look – I’ll be down that way Thursday afternoon.” It’s Monday now. “I’ll stop in the gallery, we can go over this properly. You can even call Wardle about it if that’ll help.”

Eventually, Oliver agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Claire Fisher who's artwork rings a bell for Strike is from HBO's Six Feet Under which is one of my very favorite TV shows. In the show she does create deconstructed portraits from photographs and has a period of great artistic success doing so.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so absurdly short :/

Matthew had come blustering in after the luncheon with news of a personal invitation to the executive’s dinner party. And wasn’t “this an incredible opportunity, Rob? I’m starting to make the right connections, get in with the right people in the firm – it’s just a matter of time before I’m practically running the place.”

“That’s wonderful, Matt,” Robin had assured him from the kitchen, flour on her cheeks and halfway up her elbows. She’d pillaged her mother’s old recipes, had taken to baking her time away in the hopes that the new variety of culinary experiments might distract Matt from the fact that she was very clearly not job-hunting. Let him think she was playing at homemaker. “Of course they’re charmed by you. Who wouldn’t be?”

“What’re these?” He’d twisted his mouth into a grin for her, leaning across the counter to snag a tart. Careful not to dip his tie into the baking wreckage everywhere.

“Raspberry.”

And he’d made exaggerated, dramatic moaning noises biting into it, rolling his eyes. “God, woman,” he’d said. “You are incredible.”

The invitation, he’d explained, was extended to Robin as well. And Matthew was desperate to make a good show of it to the firm’s higher ups, to present a perfect picture of himself and his lovely new wife – the both of them shiny and keen.

He’d asked her to wear the black dress. The knee-length one that sits just off the shoulders. It’s his favorite, he says. Not that he’s ever made mention of it before.

Robin wears the dress. Ignores the sliver of brilliant green in the corner of her closet.

And so Robin finds herself arm-in-arm with Matthew among the fairy lights and fine linens of an outdoor banquet hall, wandering between the tables in a daze. There are glasses of champagne circling on trays borne by waiters and Robin snags one, nurses the delicate glass in her free hand and bolsters herself with steady sips.

Tales of bungled accounts.

Office shenanigans.

Peals of laughter.

Pats on the back and congratulations all around, recounting corporate mergers and clever number crunching like the glories of war.

A steady ache starts in Robin’s left temple. Matthew _likes_ these people?

In the cab on the way over, he had repeated to her several times in his own nervousness the names of the important partners who would be in attendance, who she should know and recognize so as to seem like a good, well-informed wife. When they sit for dinner, Robin thinks Matthew may just die on the spot to find one of these senior partners – Peter Fletchley – seated at his opposite.

Fletchley and his wife Clarissa, for their part, are politely disengaged. Both mid-fifties, well-starched in their subtly fine clothes. Matthew offers several valiant attempts to sally the stilted conversation into finance – trade secrets, the real nitty-gritty teeth of the business.

“I hate coming to these things to talk _more_ about work,” says Fletchley with a weary look. “They drag me out of the office to some event and it’s still just like being at the office only with a nicer view.” His eyes light on Robin. “Young lady – what is it you said you did?”

“Oh,” Robin blinks. “I… I worked for a private detective.”

“Really?” Clarissa’s eyebrows rise to meet her hairline, amazed.

Fletchley waves his hand scornfully through the air, snorting. “You mean your husband’s trying to bore me with more number’s talk and we’ve had a regular Shirley Holmes sitting at our table?”

Robin swallows another fortifying gulp of champagne. It fizzles nauseatingly when it hits her stomach. “Well,” she confesses painfully “I’m not with him any longer – it was only ever meant to be temporary.” Lies, lies, lies. Careful falsehoods to paint a bright patina on her heartache for Matthew’s sake. She’d wanted it to be forever. “I’m between jobs at the moment.”

“ _Bah_ , the bugger fired her.” Completely unexpected, Matthew’s voice at her side so coldly derisive. And Robin, flinching, wonders just how much he’s had to drink. How much she’s had. “The man hired her on as a temp and then couldn’t get it through his skull what a gift he had on his hands.”

Matt has latched onto the idea now, spins the thread for the Fletchleys so that Cormoran becomes the buffoon – the bastard boss who never treasured Robin’s skills enough, who kept her down by not training her enough, who fired her when she did outshine him – a heroine unbound by the stuffy wreck of a man’s self-imposed protocol.

“I mean, he had Robin doing all the heavy lifting on the business and here he was taking all the credit. She’d be out all hours doing surveillance, getting into scrapes, having to drive him around and the man wasn’t even paying her half what she was worth.”

And Robin can’t listen to it. It’s slander – absolute slander and it breaks her heart.

A hundred times over there have been such nasty things directed Cormoran’s way. Attacks on his character, whole diatribes sent in the post detailing his supposed faults that Robin dutifully reads and files in the nutter bin. The ‘crip’s and ‘gimp’s and ‘ugly’s and whole assortment of cruel words that roll of the man’s back as though he is entirely deaf to them.

Robin does not have so thick a skin. She lets herself feel each hurt, each attack if Cormoran will not – feels the sting of it in her heart and thinks _damn this bloody world that’s so cruel to a man like him who’s nothing but good. It isn’t fair._

She knows that most of the time ‘fair’ is pointless. ‘Just’ is what she had hoped for, often, while working with him on Denmark Street though.

Matthew is still talking, won’t shut the fuck up. And Fletchley is laughing – exactly what Matt was angling for – and Robin feels the champagne curdle in her stomach.

“Excuse me,” she mumbles. The chair screeches backward when she stands. Too fast. “Excuse me – I’m going to find a restroom.”

She isn’t gone for more than five minutes – kneeling in the ladies toilet with the taste of bile bitter and acrid on her tongue – but the rest of the night is a blur. Matthew’s arm around her, the ringing of laughter in her ears, and she is not sure she manages to speak another word.

It gets colder on the patio and she shivers. Thinks, _I should have brought a cardi_ – maybe she says it aloud. Matthew, deeply engrossed in dialogue, does not hear her. Cannot read her mind. Does not offer her his suit coat.

Someone lights a cigarette.

It smells like Cormoran.

Strange.


	9. Chapter 9

By some miracle, Cormoran manages to find a spot to sit on the Tube for approximately three whole minutes. He’d had to promise to meet Oliver at the gallery early, and so he finds himself squeezed into the chaos of the transit morning rush – another surly, silent body swaying with the clatter-roll of the carriage.

He bows his shoulders, keeps his elbows tucked in close as passengers jostle – aware of just how much space he eats up in the crowded carriage, too tall and too broad by far – as he logs back into the false email account, pulling up the unsent draft.

_R –_

_I'm around, want to get coffee?_

_Call me._

He leaves it unsigned. She’ll know.

A handful of passengers leak out the open doors onto the platform. Twice their number press into the newly empty space. Cormoran slips the phone back into his pocket and stands, silently offering his seat to the pregnant Bengali woman who gifts him with a grateful smile. Two more stops.

His phone vibrates in the depths of his pocket.

 _Robin_?

It’s a hellish maneuver, attempting to dig the phone out without elbowing any of his fellow passengers in the kidneys – there’s not a square centimeter of space to spare – and he catches it on the last ring, doesn’t even glance at the caller ID before he answers. “Hullo?”

“ _It’s Wardle – had a call from Ollie this morning_.”

Cormoran drags his hand down his face, stifling a groan. “For chrissakes Wardle, you gave this case to me, didn’t you? What happened to ‘there isn’t enough hard evidence, coppers aren’t gonna touch it’? You’ve sure got your bloody mitts all over this.”

Wardle’s long-suffering sigh echoes down the line. “ _I’m just doing my due-diligence by Ollie_ as his friend, _Strike_. _I know he’s a fidgety bugger_.”

The carriage shudders to another brief halt, hydraulics hissing. One more stop. Strike checks his watch. “I’m meeting with him in half an hour at the gallery – he’s told you about this exhibition they’re doing?”

“ _The photographers? Yeah. He was all bent out of shape about making sure Andy wouldn’t show up_.”

“Well that’s the problem,” Cormoran huffs. “We’re trying to get evidence that Breul is stalking and harassing Oliver – can’t do that if Ollie’s pulling out all the stops to make sure he can’t get close. Breul’s going to show up at this exhibition regardless. It’s a slight to his profession that he’s not been included _and_ it’s a chance to spook Ollie again.”

“ _So what’s your plan, Gooner?_ ”

“You’re not going to be thrilled,” Cormoran warns the detective inspector.

By the time the train grinds to a halt he’s sketched out the basics. As expected, Wardle makes a few unhappy noises in his ear.

“Look,” Strike says “if Ollie doesn’t like it, fine. We can keep pissing about and Breul can keep doing just enough to terrorize him and get away with it while we try and compile a decent case. This way we get clear evidence of harassment, lots of witnesses, and it’ll be associated with the gallery – not just Ollie – so it’ll be harder for any of the homophobes in uniform to brush it off as a domestic.”

“Fuck me,” Wardle says. “You’re right.”

Cormoran shoulders his way through the press of bodies, juggling the phone as he emerges out onto the platform. “The last thing I want to do is fuck you, Wardle,” he snorts, dodging harried commuters as he heads for the stairs. “And I _know_ I’m right. If Ollie calls you again after our meeting try and convince him of that, will you? I know the whole thing has him tied up in knots but his nerves are just making things harder.”

“ _That’s Ollie for you_ ,” Wardle snorts. “ _I’ll talk to him, if need be_.”

“Thanks.”

It is five minutes from the tube station to the gallery. Cormoran hangs up on Wardle, checks his recent calls. Text messages. Emails.

Nothing from Robin.

This is _not_ going to become a compulsion.

Robin doesn’t pay much mind to the chirpy little ‘ping’ of a new email on her phone anymore. The flood of email congratulations on her wedding has died off and since been replaced by spam from job search websites, blanket enquiries about job opportunities, or requests from pyramid schemes, minimum wage positions, and the occasional reputable hiring firm.

The number for the HR department is written in Matthew’s round scrawl on a bright pink Post-It note, stuck to the back of Robin’s laptop. She has no intentions of calling.

And she is tired of waiting on bloody Cormoran Strike. Of hoping that he will get his act together and change his mind – of wondering what it all means that he had shouted and blustered and fired her one moment, and then appeared so unexpectedly at the end of the church aisle with such softness in his eyes.

It’s not going to end like this; petering out into silence with no answers and no conclusions. Robin is not going to lose her work like this. Is not going to lose her _friend_ like this.

Their partnership is not going to end. Not with a whimper, or a bang as long as Robin has a say in it.

And so she finds herself flitting about the kitchenette, having struck genius in the shower, her hair drying loose and damp around her shoulders. Some of the raspberry tarts, half a dozen ginger biscuits, and a few brownie squares – all packed into one of the larger Tupperware containers. It’s not bribery, she tells herself. Just a peace offering.

It’s strange – the physical memory that comes with slipping the Tupperware into her handbag, locking up the flat, and heading off briskly for the Tube station. Ghostly, in a way, to trace her familiar route again after all these weeks. There is a light out on the platform at the Tottenham Court Road station. The construction barrels have shifted their positions – whole new sections of the street torn up and half-replaced.

Robin deletes thirty junk emails – all job site spam – on the train ride.

It settles something in her chest to see the dark façade of the Denmark Street office. A tightness – a tangle – she hadn’t even recognized until it is loosed. The instrument murals, the haphazard wallpaper job of posters adverts and flyers. The metal staircase rings a cheery greeting to each of her footfalls, guiding her up the old dusty-smelling death spiral.

And she thinks _I’ve missed this place_ , and _it’s so good to see you again_ , and _I just want to know why you’ve turned me out_. Cormoran’s name is on the rippled glass. C. B. Strike, Private Investigator. There is only the thin light from the window illuminating the glass.

She tries the knob.

Locked.

And she no longer has a key. 

“Bugger.” Robin pushes the hair back off her face and screws up her mouth in an unhappy twist. Of course, all the moments she could show up on the landing and Strike’s out of the office. Typical. “Down the bloody boozer, I’m sure,” she mutters uncharitably to herself as she stomps back down the stairs.

She doesn’t like the taste of that in her mouth at all. Nastiness on the verge of cruelty. As unhappy as she is with Cormoran’s silence, with the drifting unfinished ends between them, she can’t really bring herself to be so disparaging. Not really. Not about Cormoran, after all she’s seen of him.

While Robin may not have a key, the owner of the music shop still keeps the spare in her desk drawer and she is more than willing to pass it off to Robin, making easy conversation about the recent comings and goings in the office and Robin’s recent absence. Congratulations on the marriage. Good to be seeing you.

The key, cool and brassy, itches in Robin’s hand.

For all the time that she has spent in the Denmark Street office, for all that she was a partner in this space, alone in the wan dusty light she feels like an interloper. A stranger. The office is too still. Too empty. And Robin has the uncomfortable, crawling sensation that she is intruding here.

She drops her bag onto the faux-leather sofa which emits a farting sound in response, pushing up the sleeves of her blouse as she stands in the center of the front office and contemplates her next moves – considers the patina of dust gathering on the corners of the desk, the climbing pile of mail, the malaise that needs airing from the room.

Robin finds herself gathering the mail scattered across the floorboards, just to keep it from being scuffled underfoot. She piles it on the corner of the desk, and it may be presumptuous – over-eager, out-stepping the boundaries of their fragile silence – but she finds the rag beneath the kitchenette sink and takes a pass at the worst of the dust on the front desk. Opens the blinds. Pours some water over the beleaguered potted plant on the window sill.

The office feels less austere for her efforts.

She leaves the Tupperware with its abundance of good-will desserts in the refrigerator and pillages the supply of legal pads and biros from the top drawer of the front desk – right where she left them – to leave a note for Strike.

_Cormoran,_

_I'm sorry I missed you – was hoping we could talk face to face soon. Hate the way we left things. I understand if you won't take me back as a partner, but I hope you will still consider me your friend as I consider you mine._

_Yours –_

_Robin_

Folding the legal pad over the back of the computer monitor she pauses, then adds an arrow pointing toward the kitchenette and a quick post-script.

_P.S. Left goodies in the fridge. You're welcome._

She wants to linger. Wants to perch on the wobbly desk chair and fire up the computer, sort through the heaps of mail and settle into the old routines. But Cormoran is not here and there is no telling when he will be back and Robin is no longer his partner.

It is not quite the resolution she hoped for.

The summer breeze catches her hair when she steps back out onto the street, whips it out behind her like a bright banner. And Robin straightens her shoulders, rucks up the straps of her handbag, and sets off briskly – she is unwilling to feel disheartened.

On the Tube, she picks her way through another handful of junk emails. Scrolling half-heartedly, not really reading, except…

_Rochelle Ashleigh – Subject: Hi_

She almost deletes it. But there’s something about the name that jogs in her memory "how do you feel about identity theft?" Rochelle Onifade. An uneasy niggling at the back of her brain. "My name's Ashleigh," she'd said, acutely aware of his eyes on her. "And that's e-i-g-h not l-double-e."

“When asked to come up with a fake name on the spot, people usually choose one beginning with ‘A’, did you know that?” Bemused, smiling eyes.

Robin studies the message again – two curt sentences.

_I'm around, want to get coffee?_

_Call me._

It's the address that does it. hatherill123@mail.co.uk.

Cormoran.

He is frowning up at the security cameras positioned to cover every inch of the gallery’s main exhibition space when the pocket of his suit coat begins to vibrate in earnest.

“Our security is top notch,” Oliver is all rambling and quick gestures – pointing out where each of the photographer’s exhibits will be positioned, noting the locations of all of the security cameras, the motion sensors protecting the artworks, making anxious eyebrows at Cormoran as they tour the space. “If you really think this is the best way – and I suppose Eric agreed with you – I just, I don’t like the idea of confronting him…”

Strike fishes in his pocket for the phone, reassuring Oliver “I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that you’re safe, Ollie. I promise, this is the best way to do that.” It’s Robin. Christ, he can’t ignore it again. He waggles the phone. “Sorry, I've been waiting for this call – you mind?”

“No, no. Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” He heads for the gallery door, stepping out onto the street. “Cormoran Strike.”

“ _Cormoran? It's Robin_.”

The world stops. The noise of the passing traffic slows to silence. “Hi Robin.” He cannot help but smile, studies the skyline to avoid examining the warmth uncurling in his chest at the sound of her voice. “You all right?”

“ _Yes. Yeah, I'm fine – I got your email_." She hesitates. " _Cormoran, I don't understand what's going on_."

Strike drags a hand down his face. He knows she has no idea just how much her voice gives away – the frustration, the softly plaintive need for answers. The hurt. Cormoran hates to hear the hurt. "Christ. I know. It's – Robin, I'm sorry."

“ _Oh, for the love of_ …” He almost doesn’t catch the words, whispered away from the receiver in her aggravation. And then, spitfire that she is, Robin tells him “ _I don't want the bloody runaround from you_. _I just – I want to – I came by the office and you weren't there and you won't call_ …”

Damn it. Damn. Bloody bugger it all to hell.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Cormoran mutters. He glances up, lets his gaze be caught by passing cabs and the silhouettes of pedestrians.

" _What_?"

"Look, Robin, there's a lot we need to talk about. Face to face." Across the street. That face – his eyes slide over the square, lean features and then skip back. He knows that bloody stupid face. Shit. "Can you meet me? Tomorrow?"

" _I – yes. Yes, that's_ …"

He needs to get her off the line. Head bent, Cormoran wanders a few paces down street, watching from the corner of his eye as Andrew Breul mirrors his pace on the opposite side of the street. "Okay. Come round the office at half-past."

" _But_ …"

“Robin, we _will_ talk later – but I have to go.”

He hangs up.

With the phone still cradled against his ear, he continues along the street watching as Breul jogs along. And Cormoran waits until there is a gap in the traffic before he curses the bastard fucking leg and hauls arse across the road moving at a quick, awkward lurch.

Breul’s ‘oh shit’ expression is exceedingly satisfying and only lasts for approximately three seconds. Having lost the upper hand, the photographer squares his jaw and steps up like prizefighter into the ring – cocky and manic-eyed – to meet Cormoran on the kerb. The Nikon camera with its tele-zoom lens dangles from his neck. “You the fucking PI Ollie’s got gumming around now?”

“I am.” Cormoran keeps his voice low, level. “You the ex-boyfriend who’s stalking Oliver Lafitte and leaving photographs in his flat?”

The heavy, square chin juts out even further – lifts an inch to meet Strike’s gaze in challenge. “It isn’t any of your business what we do. That’s our private life – between Ollie and me – and you’ll stay out of it if you know what’s good for you, you big fuck.”

“You don’t have a private life with Oliver anymore, Andrew,” Cormoran reminds him coldly, taking one looming step in closer. “He is no longer your partner and you have no right to invade his privacy or harass him – he wants nothing to do with you.”

“Sure,” Breul rolls his eyes. “He says that, but he always comes crawling back. You don’t know Ollie like I do – you don’t know anything at all.”

Cormoran raises one stern eyebrow. “What I do know is that stalking and harassment charges are serious business when they can be made to stick, and that you should consider this your one _very_ polite warning to cease and desist.”

And this was a stupid idea. He shouldn’t have stepped across the road – there is no Royal Military Police to back him now, no power of the law behind him except what Wardle can pass down secondhand. And Breul is bright-eyed with mania, shouting expletives as he shoves Cormoran and runs – and Cormoran trips, stumbles, barely bites back a howl when something wrenches in his knee.

“Shit – _shit_!”

Cormoran is too bloody furious and too stupid to think clearly and he lunges – snags Breul by the arm. Breul spins and the Nikon spins with him, a solid mass of magnesium and carbon composite that Cormoran takes right upside the head and Breul shoves backward with all his strength and the kerb is unyielding and the _fucking ankle doesn’t bend_.

A shout.

Horns blaring.

Colors smear. The world hurts.

Cormoran thinks slowly, _should have hit the fucking brakes._


	10. Chapter 10

The call comes in the early blue-black hours, when they have just fallen into bed. Robin is reading by the light of the bedside lamp – one of the detective fiction novels from the airport – and Matt is a warm, solid press of spine along her hip.

She stretches for the phone, doing her best to avoid jostling him. Is it Cormoran?

Robin doesn't recognize the number.

"Hello?"

" _Is this Robin_?"

Matt rolls over beside her. “Wuzzat?”

She shakes her head at him, pushing the hair off her face. _Nothing_. _Go back to sleep_. The voice is familiar – serious and female – and Robin screws her eyes shut, struggling to place it. "Er, yes," she fumbles. "Yes, um, this is she."

" _It's Ilsa_." Says the soft, troubled voice at the other end of the line. " _Ilsa Herbert. Cormoran's friend_."

And that makes Robin sit up straighter, all the muscles in her back gone rigid. "Ilsa, of course." She keeps her tone carefully neutral, ignoring the way her heart has leapt to hammer in the hollow of her throat. "Is everything all right?"

"Rob – what's goin' on?"

Ilsa's sigh echoes across the receiver. " _No. No, and I'm sorry to call you at this hour, Robin, but I couldn't think of anyone else_. _I've just had a call that Cormoran's in hospital_." And then, blessedly, sensing the myriad of questions that send panic jolting down Robin's spine, Ilsa hurries to add " _he’s at Charing Cross. A car accident. They've said he'll be all right. But – oh Robin_."

She hears the fragile, tremulous catch in Ilsa's voice.

A car accident?

"I don't…" Robin pushes herself up from the bed, ignoring Matthew's flung-out arm. "I just spoke with him earlier today…"

" _I'm sorry, I don't know all the details_." Ilsa steels herself, a slow deep breath that echoes on the line. " _The hospital called us because we're his emergency contacts, but Nick and I are out of town. He's okay to be discharged, but he's suffered a concussion so they'd prefer to send him home with supervision._ "

Oh, Cormoran, what have you done to yourself?

Matt gapes at her, his eyes rich in the lamplight. "Who are you talking to?"

She pulls the phone away, mouthing 'just a second'.

" _I know it's a big ask,_ " says Ilsa " _and I wouldn't have called if I knew another option – if I call Lucy she'll just have an emotional tailspin and Cormoran will refuse to speak to me for a month. He really just needs someone to get him home from the hospital in one piece tonight_."

Robin is already on her feet, wedging the phone between ear and shoulder so that she can struggle into jeans and a soft jumper. "Of course," she insists. "Of course, Ilsa."

"What are you doing?"

" _You're a saint, Robin_." Ilsa's relief is palpable. " _Will you call and let me know what's happened?_ "

"I will" Robin promises, shoving her feet into trainers. Her heart hammers in her chest, the blood throbbing low in her ears. "I will, Ilsa."

" _And take care of yourself_."

Sitting upright, bedcovers strewn about his waist, Matthew watches her with a wary, puzzled look. Sleep has been forgotten. "What was that all about?" he asks again and the sight of him – the question – stops Robin in her flight, pins her, breathless, on the spot in the middle of the room. "Where are you going?"

Dazed, Robin says “that was Ilsa.” And ignoring Matt’s ‘who?’ she says numbly “there was – Cormoran’s been in an accident.”

Matthew’s eyebrows rise sharply at that. “What – _Strike_?” Robin is backpedaling and he’s tossing off the duvet, snapping “for the love of Christ, what’re they doing calling you about it then? Doesn’t the man know when to leave you alone?”

And Robin can only hear the frantic hammer of her heart; the cut-off, too tight squeezing of her lungs behind her ribs. She says “Matt, I have to go.” _I have to. I have to. I have to._ And somehow her legs must carry her out of the flat, out into the driver’s seat of the Land Rover.

The steering wheel’s molded, leathery vinyl is warm and solid beneath her hands. It steadies her, grounds her wavering thoughts firmly in the here-and-now of the musty, wet-hay smell of the interior.

It’s going to be all right.

 _Cormoran_. Cormoran – what have you done?

She grinds the pedals underfoot, just a little bit. Just for the sound of the engine revving and the leak of petrol fumes that clears her head.

His nose has finally stopped bleeding, but the iron-rich taste of blood is still thick in his mouth when he swallows. Every so often – it is only his imagination – he is aware of the _crack-pop_ grit of sand between his teeth.

The sterile white lights of the Accident & Emergency Department leave Strike feeling tender and bruised. They've patched him up, asked an unnecessary number of questions about the nonexistent left foot that was absolutely not the purpose of his visit, and left him in the curtained-off enclosure to shiver and sweat and be periodically harassed by Nurse Bridget who speaks very gently and very slowly.

"Mr. Strike," she tells him – although she addresses the words to his clipboard of vitals "we've reached out to your emergency contact – Dr. Herbert?”

Damn it.

He didn't want them to call Nick and Ilsa – didn't want them calling anybody. What he wants is to drag himself back to Denmark Street, to disappear into work or booze or forty-odd cigarettes chain-smoked back-to-back; anything to get him back on the ground, to ease the feeling of static crawling beneath his skin. He inhales a slow, unsteady breath.

“Now look, there's no reason to keep me here.” His scraped palms sting, fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically in the starchy off-white sheets of the gurney bed. There's a splint – itchy and Velcro – on the left wrist. It hurts to breathe. “I don't need you to contact anyone. You've x-rayed me, I’ve stopped bleeding – I’m not in any imminent danger of dying. Now let me go home.”

"Cormoran?"

This time, he swears aloud.

Robin is pink-cheeked and bright in the muted pallor of the corridor, her face scrubbed bare and eyebrows puckered. A few fine, loose hairs have escaped her scraped-back ponytail, forming a corona in the fluorescent lights.

"Robin." Strike passes a hand across his pale face, aggrieved. A moment to pull together the tattered-edges of his composure. "What… What are you doing here?"

She blinks at him then, seated on the hospital bed looking miserable and vulnerable, and stumbles a few times before she manages to sort out how to explain herself. "Ilsa called me. She said there’d been an accident – you… Cormoran, what _happened_?"

They've super-glued the cut across his temple, mopped up the blood from his busted nose and split lip. According to the Emergency Physician it was a miracle the camera lens hadn't cracked his cheekbone. As it is, the side of his face is a motley of rapidly rising reds and blues and purples, throbbing and badly discolored. The white of his eye gone red and bloody.

And that's only what Robin can _see_.

Cormoran shifts his weight on the gurney and winces. Decides that's a terrible idea. "Hit by a cab," he tells her thickly. His voice is strangely hoarse, drifting in a much fainter register. "And a twat with a camera. I'm sorry – you shouldn't have had to come."

Robin politely ignores the apology.  

Up close, beneath the red welts and the bruising, he is grey-faced and clammy – his green eyes frightfully distant. The big shoulders have drawn themselves inward, his broad body hunched protectively over itself, and she has never seen him so still, so hurt and unsettled. Her hand twitches of its own accord toward the uninjured portion of his face…

"Bloody bystanders made a fit about my leg." He looks past her as he speaks, watching the shadows of passing figures on the pale privacy curtain. "Clobbered on the head, struck by a black cab at low speed, and here I am trying to explain that the leg was already like that and there's no need to panic. Ridiculous."

It's then that Robin notices the emptiness that ends at the bottom of his right pant leg; the prosthesis wrapped in a plastic hospital carry-bag and propped against the cabinet. And she can't help it this time when her small, steady hand finds its way to his shoulder, smoothing down the broad expanse of his back.

 _Poor thing_ , she wants to soothe. _Is this about a case? What on earth were you doing_? She wants to ask. _Tell me everything_. Instead, she circles her thumb gently in the warm knot between his shoulder blades and purses her lips, tutting. "Really buggered you up, didn't they?"

"'Fraid so." His expression, on any other man, might very well be pouting.

"How did this happen?"

Nurse Bridget makes a reappearance with her clipboard and the discharge paperwork for Cormoran to sign. Robin watches as he scribbles a tight, scrawling signature with his shaking hand. His forearm is a mess of road rash.

There's the business of discharge instructions – Cormoran remains vacant-eyed and stiff beneath Robin's splayed palm and so Bridget directs all of these instructions to Robin. He can sleep with the concussion but he ought to be woken up every few hours to be checked on, he needs to take the pain medications as prescribed, follow up with his primary, et cetera, et cetera. If Robin knows Cormoran, he will do approximately none of these things. She accepts the sheaf of papers on his behalf.

"I'll bring a chair around for him," Bridget says, disappearing beyond the curtain.

Cormoran cants his head, studying Robin sideways with the eye that isn't swollen halfway shut. "Workin' a case," he tells her. "It got uglier than it should have. Confronted a stalker, he got a good shove in.” _Stupid_. He makes a disgruntled noise. “I would’ve been fine, but I went over the kerb like an ass and _that thing_ ” indicating the leg “was no help at all – lost my balance and apparently did a header into the oncoming cab.”

“Jesus,” Robin mumbles, wide-eyed. “Was he stalking you or a client?”

The wheelchair is conjured – grey and navy blue, with sticky tape wrapped around the handles, and Robin fully expects a show of pride from the detective. _Something_. But Cormoran, hunched and unsettled on the edge of the gurney only manages a look of disgust for the thing, telling Robin “it’s a client he’s harassing, but he knows I’m involved and felt the need to tell me to piss off.” And then he glances up at Bridget who waits patiently to assist him and says “I’ve done this before. Don’t bother.”

Robin watches as he focuses himself, that deep furrow of concentration appearing between his heavy eyebrows, before Cormoran stretches out and grabs hold of the arm rests of the wheelchair. His broken ribs grate and groan in protest. And he had to do this before after Afghanistan – remembers how to brace his weight on his arms when he stands, how to shift himself carefully on his one lonely foot without crashing to the floor.

The wide, strong muscles in his shoulders hold him steady when he sinks backward into the chair, casting weary green eyes in Robin’s direction. “Hand me my leg?” The corners of his eyes crinkle ever so slightly at the absurdity of the request.

She passes him the plastic carry-bag with the prosthesis. He settles the leg across his lap, folding his arms on top of it. The pharmacy bag of medications Bridget passes to him crinkles in his white-knuckled grip.

Robin nods down at him, hands on her hips, and says briskly "let's get you home, then."

Cormoran doesn’t say another word when Robin takes the grips of the wheelchair. She has to plant her feet and really lean into it to turn him around the corners, but he only hums low and uneasy in the back of his throat, eyes closed and his heavy head tipped back.

She wheels him out the A&E entrance and down along the sidewalk toward the car park, careful to avoid the cracks and uneven pavement as best as she is able. Robin navigates them into the shelter of the car park, the rubber wheels of the chair catching on the concrete, struggling slowly up the ramps, but she tosses her ponytail over her shoulder and leans down to say into his ear “I got us a good spot, not to worry.”

And Cormoran feels useless. Ungracious. Sitting wrecked and broken and badly shaken up in the wheelchair with his prosthetic laid across his knees and his nerves rattling in his skull. The Land Rover is hulking up ahead, a lumbering beast hunkered among the Toyotas and the Volkswagens in the car park’s lights. He can still hear the hollow _thunk_ of the cab’s hood beneath his body. Burnt rubber and exhaust.

Shit. Oh, Christ.

It’s another shitshow of careful movement and awkward shifting that gets him into the passenger’s seat without screaming. Robin doesn’t fuss, just watches with her cool serious eyes, fine little craters appearing in the tight space between her worried eyebrows. It feels less of a shameful process when Robin watches than it had with Charlotte – less awkward, less guilty for the fall from grace. Hard as he looks, he can’t find the same words written in her eyes. _Shitty. Broken. Disaster. Wrecked. Useless_.

Charlotte had never said the words aloud, not when he was recovering. But he’d read them there all the same.

He waits in the passenger seat for Robin to return to the wheelchair, presses the knob of his skull into the padding of the headrest, and watches as his hands – spread flat in the air – tremble. A cold sweat has broken out on his upper lip. The breath comes hard and fast in his lungs. And he knows none of it has anything to do with his injuries, with the effort of climbing into the Land Rover.

If he blinks just the right way, he sees the grey-white sun. The brightly-painted patterns of the truck blocking the road.

When the door slams he nearly jumps out of his skin. When Robin starts the Land Rover’s throaty, rumbling engine Strike wants to die.

“You all right?” She studies him sideways for a long moment. He is too pale by far, his face wrecked beyond the swelling and the bruises.

Cormoran breathes shallowly. Nods. His reflection in the sideview mirror is wild-eyed. “Yeah,” he assures her. “Yeah, m’fine.”

It is only seven miles from Charing Cross to the office on Denmark Street. Seven miles that takes twenty minutes to drive traveling on the A4, even with Robin behind the wheel. The sound of the engine replaces the pulse of a heartbeat in Cormoran’s chest. His broken ribs twinge with each thin, gasping breath that comes too fast – too tight. He tries to breathe through his swollen, bloodied nose. A worse idea.

His mouth tastes like blood and remembers the creak of sand between his teeth and his body is lit up with a myriad of brilliant, red-and-black starbursts of pain and the leg is hot and aching and he wants to weep with frustration because the damn foot is tingling again except there isn’t a foot to _tingle_ anymore and the Land Rover is too massive – too close to the Humvee – and he shouldn’t be falling apart like this. It was a car accident, just a graze by a black cab, not even similar – he’s fine – he’ll be fine. And Robin is at the wheel – he shouldn’t panic…

“Cormoran,” she says his name again. Risks dragging her eyes away from the road long enough to look him up and down. “ _Cormoran_.”

He’s breathing, but he can’t stop the trembling in his hands. And the pain won’t go away and the sense-memories of the IED are too sharply clear and he rasps out “shit, I’m fine. I’m – flashback.” A horrible choking noise that he supposes is meant to be a laugh. “Bloody… vehicles. My track record’s not so good.”

“Oh,” Robin’s voice, terribly soft. “ _Oh no, Cormoran_.”

“S’okay,” he mutters. Maybe. It’s hard to tell with the scramble in his brain. “Just… drive fast.”

She does.

One steady hand relinquishes the steering wheel, and if it were anyone else that might spell disaster – but this is Robin of the Advanced Driving Classes, and Cormoran is in no state to worry about hands at ten and two in any case – and without looking away from the road, Robin captures his large, trembling right hand in her neat little left one and squeezes tight.

“Almost there, only five minutes away” she tells him. “Just hold on to me. All right?”

Her hand is soft. Not delicate, not soft in the absence of work, but the kind of softness that comes with care. With gentleness. Her palm is cool and dry. Cormoran presses her fingers tight in his own rough, ungraceful grip and grits out through locked jaws “you didn’t have to come tonight.”

She spins the wheel, bumps them down Denmark Street. And her parking job is likely illegal but Robin can’t bring herself to care tonight. She’ll deal with the fines later, if they come. “Of course I did,” she says. “Cormoran – I’m your friend. Of course I’d come.”

Something soft replaces some of the agony in his face then. “M’glad you did.”

If it’s a shitshow getting in and out of the Land Rover with all of his injuries and the subtraction of a foot, it’s an even uglier effort managing the staircase. In the end, Cormoran digs the keys from his pocket and sends Robin up to the attic flat to retrieve his crutches from their hiding place in the back of his sparse closet. The crutches are loud on the metal stairs and it’s slow going, Cormoran balancing on Robin when they have to pause for breaks.

There is no way he will make it all the way up to the attic flat tonight. The last few steps into the office are a frantic stumble-rush. Robin just barely manages to get him onto the farting, faux-leather sofa before Cormoran’s good leg gives out – entirely done with weight-bearing for the day. He goes down hard, rolling on his hip to protect the freshly broken ribs, his groan muffled by the flatulent noises from the sofa.

Robin props the leg against the side of the sofa, drops the pharmacy bag onto the desk. Her note – scribbled onto the legal pad – is still draped over the back of the computer monitor from earlier this afternoon. It feels like days ago. She says “let me go get you some things from the flat – I’ll be right back.” He’ll need clean clothes, there’s blood all over his shirt, pillow and sheets for the couch since she won’t be moving him another step tonight…

“Robin,” his low, hoarse voice is fragile in the darkness of the office. “You don’t have to stay.”

Of course I do. This is where I belong. “You have a concussion,” she reminds him. “You’ll need to be monitored every few hours.” And she crosses back to the couch to kneel beside him with the first dose of pills and a glass of tap water from the kitchenette “Besides, do you really think I’d just dump you here and run? I’m staying.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For dearest lindmea - motivator, inspiration, and patient listener <3

Cormoran wouldn't blame Robin for snooping. He himself has always been hopelessly nosy; unable to turn off the investigator's brain, always alert for information. She won't go rifling through drawers, but he has no illusions – Robin Ellacott (Cunliffe, damn it) is a sharp woman. Certain conclusions will be made regarding his sparse, crumpled life.

His thick fingers curl and uncurl, making useless fists on his lap while he waits, tracking her light footsteps overhead with his chin bowed to his chest and weary eyes closed. It's a hateful business, he thinks. The whole mess. And he dreads Robin's reappearance, her unawareness of just how acutely the emotions will be written across her face.

She will be so kind. And so pitying.

Cormoran sighs, tipping his sore head over the back of the couch. Studies the water spots on the ceiling. Christ, the last thing he wants is _pity_ from Robin. To be looked at with kind eyes and treated tenderly because he has become a sad and broken thing.

When she backs through the glass door with her armful of the necessary equipment for bivouacking on the office couch for the night, though, there is not a hint of trouble to dim the sparkle of her fair grey eyes.

"Thanks," he says, accepting the bundle.

Robin makes herself busy fiddling with the orange bottles of prescription pills, lining them up along the kitchenette counter as Cormoran undoes the buttons of his bloodied shirt, stripping off efficiently. And she does her best to ignore the blotchy pink flush that crawls its way up her neck, heating her cheeks – there isn't enough space in the office to avoid a glimpse of the broad barrel chest and span of belly and the coarse dark hair covered in ace bandages – and she can't very well escape to the inner office without making her embarrassment obvious and she can't help sneaking glances.

"Don't thank me." She sighs, bracing her arms heavily on the countertop. Her bright ponytail slips over one shoulder as she watches him. "I'm not very happy with you."

"No?"

And the questions are poised on the edge of her lips, ready to burst on the air: _why didn't you ever call me? How can you act like nothing is wrong every time you see me? Will you take me back on?_

But Strike's eyes cut sideways and his eyebrows fly upward and make a sharp turn downward, furrowing over the bridge of his nose, and Robin knows the anxious wary look in his eyes. "Fuck," he says, passing a hand across his face. "Robin, what's that on the computer?"

She winces, guilty, and turns to pluck the legal pad from its resting place, draped across the back of the computer monitor. "Oh, er, it's nothing," she evades, flipping the blank pages back over her scribbled note. "I came by earlier today while you were out – I wanted to talk, and you won't call and when I try calling you don't answer. And then I get your bloody cryptic email and that call from Ilsa and _I just don't understand what's going on_."

"Robin—" The expression on Cormoran's face has gone from hackles-raised at the sight of the note to something dreadfully kind. The one green eye that studies her from his hunched-over posture on the couch is soft.

And all of Robin's frustrations – all of her pent-up agonies over the loss of Denmark Street and the longing for her work and the deep-seated disquiet of loving and being smothered by her husband and the fear, terrible and nauseating, that had gripped the knot of her stomach at the words _Cormoran's in hospital_ – gather in clumps of hot tears that well up on her bottom lashes. One single tear has the nerve to dart down her cheek. She swipes at it, furious.

"Bugger."

Cormoran smiles a bloody, split-lipped grin at the full, rounded Yorkshire sound of her vowels. Which only makes things worse. He shifts on the couch, making apologetic faces when it farts in response, and says her name “Robin” in a terribly gentle way.

“I’m sorry – I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…” and she smears again at her face, the tears that just keep leaking out despite all her best efforts. What must he think of her, going to pieces like this over nothing? She’s been so unbelievably foolish.

“ _Robin_.” He isn’t sharp with her, but his own nerves are frayed to the breaking point and every emotion and sensation is raw and keen in the confines of his patched and battered soul. Her name comes out too harsh. He checks his tone. “Robin, come here.”

She sniffles. “Why?”

“Because I’m a sore, one-legged bastard who can’t get up and you’re in need of a hug.”

For a brief, startled moment she regards him over the wet pass of her knuckles across the curve of her cheek. The sensible, rational part of Strike’s brain thinks _you’ve overstepped_ and _well done,_ _stupid bugger, you’ve gone and made it worse_. Robin wavers, and then silently joins him on the sofa, folding one leg underneath her as she settles.

And Cormoran tucks her up under one arm as he gathers her against his uninjured side, wrapping her up in his arms. She hugs him so carefully, her fingers curling in the loose fabric of his shirt. He is warm, so warm against her and around her, his arms heavy and sturdy and secure, and Robin is careful not to rest too much of her weight against Cormoran’s side. But for all that she is so, so careful he is sharply aware of the hitching of her breath, the catch of her long, bright hair in his stubble.

She is so close to him. His heartbeat steady and firm beneath her curled fist.

One big hand cradles her head against his shoulder, and it must be the concussion because Cormoran hardly notices the way his thick, rough fingers stroke the nape of her skull when he tells her “look, Robin, I really am sorry.”

“I don’t—” Robin waves the apology away with a frown, sniffling into his shirt-collar. He smells of hospital antiseptics, and – more familiar – of cigarettes and cheap detergent. “Just tell me _why_. And – am I still fired? You came to the wedding but, you never called after everything and you sent that bizarre email and I just… I don’t know, Cormoran, I thought…” She swallows hard.

“I know.” Cormoran heaves a gusty, massive sigh that seems like it just might be collapsing under the weight of the world. “I know. It all went a bit tit’s up, didn’t it?” And he might as well just rip the plaster off, put it to her plainly. He says “my number’s been blocked on your phone.”

“ _What_?” Robin sits up so fast she nearly knocks him in the chin. Cormoran grunts, his injured ribs shifting painfully. “But – that doesn’t make sense.”

“You have your phone?”

Mutely, Robin unfolds herself from his side – mourns the loss of contact – and sets about rifling through her handbag for the cellphone. Three missed calls from Matt. A flurry of increasingly impatient text messages. She ignores them.

Strike waggles his own phone at her from the couch, punches in Robin’s number – showing her the screen as it dials, ringing once over the speakers and then          her own voice says " _Hi, this is Robin Ellacott, sorry I missed your call. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can_."

Robin’s phone is still blank-screened and inert in her hand. She blinks at Cormoran, uncomprehending. “I didn’t do this – I wouldn’t have.” How did this happen? It doesn’t make any sense.

Cormoran says, very gently, “I didn’t think so.” And the skin around his eyes is tight, the crooked line of his mouth pulled into an unhappy, thin-lipped grimace as if the next question is physically painful for him to ask. “How much access does Matt have to your phone, Robin? Does he know your password?”

“He – yes.” Robin nearly drops the phone, taken aback. She looks from Cormoran to her reflection, smiling up from the lock screen where she is wrapped in Matt’s arms, the engagement ring twinkling newly on her left hand. “You don’t think…?”

Cormoran doesn’t say anything. It’s very obvious what he thinks – his eyes are bright and sharp with anguish.

“The fake email…”

“I worried your messages were being read.” Cormoran shifts again on the sofa, looking increasingly uneasy. The worry-knot grows deeper between his eyebrows, watching Robin. “Contact with me obviously wasn’t welcome based on the blocked number. I figured it was safer to reach out to you that way – you’d understand my hint and meet me if you were willing, and if not you’d either ignore me or tell me to take a hike.”

There is a cold, sick weight in Robin’s belly. The memory of Matt trawling through her emails, digging through her browser history – she’d changed her password. He couldn’t get in to her account any more. And he’d apologized, had been properly chagrined about the whole thing later – but, Christ, the way Cormoran talks makes her blood run cold and she says “what d’you mean? _Safer_?”

He gives her a steady look. She knows what he means.

“Matt’s not – you can’t think…” But it looks like a duck. And it walks like a duck.

Just because the duck doesn’t quack, does that mean it’s not a duck?

Her fingers are numb, hands shaking as she taps through the menu options on her phone screen. The glass protector is gummy beneath her fingerprints. "I am not being abused by my husband," she says hard and angry, a knot between her eyebrows, the hot tears still clinging to her lashes. The Yorkshire in her voice turns it into h _oo_ sband.

Cormoran says quietly "okay."

His phone number is there, listed under Blocked Numbers in her settings. Robin knows she did not put it there. And that knowledge hits the floor of her stomach, sour and curdling. She unblocks the number, aware of Cormoran's eyes over her shoulder, the bulk of him leaning just into the edge of her space.

For a long, tremulous moment, Robin says nothing. Then, "I should be angry – shouldn't I? I should want to knock his head off for this. But I'm just… tired. Sad." Her full bottom lip quivers a bit.

Cormoran makes a faint humming sound at the back of his throat, and he is taking too many liberties tonight but he presses his large, warm palm to the curve of space between her shoulder blades and tells her "if you want to kick his arse, that's fine. If you want to toss the phone in the bin and cry your eyes out, that's also fine. No one right way to react to things."

He feels her deflate beneath his palm, a thin, shuddering sigh as she pushes her fingers up into her hair. "I was so sure you hadn't called because you were angry with me. After… after what I did with Brockbank and how things ended up, I just assumed – maybe you'd meant it. That it was over." And she has to stop and catch her breath, swallow around the new swell of tears that spring to her eyes.

Oh. Oh shit.

"Christ, Robin – that was never what I intended." The thought that Robin has been sitting with this guilt, this specter of his anger and the imagined loss of his regard for her, leaves a dull scummy flavor in his mouth, a pang in the hollow behind his sternum. "I will admit that your reckless inability to listen to me when I told you _not_ to confront Brockbank did piss me the hell off and I tore Shanker a new one for enabling you." He holds up a hand to stop her protests. "You put yourself in danger and took unnecessary risks. But you were _right_. I owe you an apology for that."

Tucked up neatly against his side, Cormoran feels Robin’s lean, sturdy body breathe sharply. The eyes that find his – red-rimmed and teary – are grateful and uncomprehending.

"Robin, I fired you because you were too close to me." Cormoran sags back against the sofa cushions, trying to ignore the way his ribs shift and ache sharply. There is a fine static buzz beginning behind his frontal lobe, vibrating in the heavy slope of his forehead. "Laing was fixating on you, and after the stunt you pulled I couldn't trust that you were ready to keep your head down and follow orders."

"But—"

"I needed you out of the way and safe." Terrible. Terrible – the breathless squeeze of fear in his chest, the leap of his heart into his throat. The memory of Robin’s voice, faint and howling down the phone line. The deep drag of the knife wound down her forearm. The terror that had seized in his chest at the phone call – the admission that she had gone to see Alicia, that Brockbank had found her there, that she had been _hurt_ … "It was the easiest way to accomplish that."

"You…"

Cormoran’s breath shakes when he exhales, dips his aching head into his hands. Both his palms are raw and scored with road rash. This is a conversation that's been weeks in the making and still, still he struggles with the words. "Look, Robin. You know how this business works – partner or no, I'm never going to be able to pay you what you're really worth. And you know your husband, it's up to you to decide what happens there. But I have missed you and I would be bloody grateful to have you back in the office."

And… for all that Robin has wanted so desperately to hear those words, she had not dared to imagine the moment she would actually hear them. Now, as Cormoran says the words, it seems impossible. “You want me back?”

"As partners, yeah?" Cormoran twinkles at her, all busted-up face and wonderfully pleased eyes.

 She says, breathless, “of course. Yeah.” And then, caught up in the rush of warmth behind her breastbone – the sharp catch of emotion in her throat – Robin surges into him; pressing her face into his thick shoulder, arms stretched around his barrel-chest.

"Ah, Christ!" Cormoran goes rigid, the whites of his eyes stark and round, and all at once Robin is reminded of the three broken ribs and countless awful bruises.

Drawing back immediately, she jostles him even more, stammering out a frantic "God, I'm sorry – I'm sorry!" restraining herself from reaching to smooth over the damage, inspect and soothe the hurts with her own two hands.

"It's all right," Cormoran assures her, white-faced and wincing. "I'm fine. Really."

Robin doesn't bother to dignify that lie with a response. "You should rest some," she tells him softly, tilting her head to study the ugly sprawl of contusions across the side of his face. "Cab and a camera," she muses. "Brutal."

"Looks worse'n it is," Cormoran mumbles, but he shuffles down a little further on the sofa, folding his arms across his chest. It won't be comfortable, sleeping upright on the sofa, but he's slept in worse places under worse conditions – and getting himself horizontal with his ribs and his shoulder throbbing and feeling like raw hamburger is too much of a task. "Not like I was winning any beauty contests before."

Robin snorts, unable to help the flush that rises high in her cheeks. "No," she agrees faintly. "I suppose not."

And the day's events all seem to settle their weight on Cormoran's shoulders at once; slow and heavy, pressing him deeper into the sofa, dragging low his drooping eyelids. He rumbles "you don't have to stay, Robin."

She stands to help scoot the pillow behind his head, drawing the sheet up to his shoulders. "You have a concussion," she reminds him "I'm not leaving you on your own. Just try and kick me out."

Cormoran harrumphs and tugs at the sheet. "Can sleep in the flat."

"Okay." Robin settles herself in the office chair.

He cracks one green eye open. "All right, look Robin – I'm sure you've been frightened halfway to a heart attack by my antics tonight and I'm sorry for that, but I know the concussion protocol, and you don't need to _observe_ me sleeping. Just give me a shove every so often and, if I stop snoring, _then_ you can worry."

Robin looks helplessly at him. Something aches, high in the center of her chest. And there's so many things she wants to say, a hundred gentle words that seize in the vise of her ribcage, strangle before they reach her lips…

Cormoran closes his eyes again and mutters "Lafitte, Pater, Haliwell, and Ali – if you really want something to do. Current cases. Have a look at the files, get yourself familiarized."

Five minutes later he is snoring the low, thin rumble of a man whose nose has been broken and badly set on more than one occasion and Robin has rifled through the heavy metal cabinets for the four case files in their accordion folders.

She sends off a quick text to Ilsa; _Home safe, keeping an eye on him tonight. Xx – Robin_

There are half-a-dozen from Matthew, and she scrolls through these with some trepidation in the dim stillness of the office after reading through the Haliwell and Pater files, both of which are thick with photographs of the cheating spouses, Cormoran's idling-motor snores a comforting layer of white noise in the small hours.

_Where the hell did u go??!?!_

_I can't believe u ran off to rescue that bastard again._

_Where r u?!!?!?_

_U said u were done with this._

_U are my WIFE Robin._

_Cheating bitch._

Robin feels the blood turn to splinters of ice in her veins; the slow, cold diffusion of fury through her limbs. She wants to scream, rage, rail against something – she types carefully, each letter picked out precisely on the keyboard; _Cormoran was hit by a car. His emergency contacts not available. I'm staying to make sure he's all right_. And then, before she can think the better of it, she types out the second message. _And how DARE you. I'm not the one in the wrong here_.

She powers off her phone, slips it into her handbag, slumped against the corner of the desk, and buries herself in the Ali and Lafitte files.

The business with Oliver Lafitte and Andrew Breul is a peculiar read, the facts laid out in Cormoran's cramped and spiny writing. Turned over to Strike at Wardle's request, the business with the photographs, the gallery – and Cormoran has slipped in a pamphlet for the upcoming exhibition of photographers.

He grumbles in his sleep, frowning deeply. Robin checks the time and unfolds herself from behind the desk, nudging him awake with the flat of her hand.

"Hmm?"

"Just checking on you," Robin hums. "All right?"

Cormoran nods, lifting his eyebrows and trying to look reassuring while still mostly asleep. "Yeah, fine." Then, opening both eyes wider, he gives her an awkward sideways look. "Hand me the crutches?"

"Sure," Robin obliges, passing the crutches over to him. "Why – I can –?"

He sighs up at her, aggrieved. "I just need a pee, Robin."

She blushes. "Right. Sorry."

Cormoran just shakes his head and smiles at her, that fond, wonderfully crooked smirk, the corners of his eyes softening deeply as he levers himself up onto the crutches, making his slow, thumping way from the office out to the hall bathroom. Robin restrains herself from popping up to open the doors ahead of him.

When she jostles the mouse on its keypad, the computer's lock screen reads just past two in the morning. Denmark Street is blue-black and humming beyond the smeary window panes, the office a construction of half-shadows and silhouettes that Robin could negotiate blind – she has slipped into the bones of this place.

She listens for the rhythm of crutches and footfalls beyond the door, watches as Cormoran patiently negotiates his way back into the office, still looking tired but a little less haggard for the few hours of sleep he'd managed so far.

"You read the case files?"

Robin nods.

"Have you guessed which of the fuckers shoved me in front of a cab?" Cormoran eases himself down onto the sofa. Neither one of them acknowledges the terrible, flatulent sounds the faux-leather makes anymore.

"Haliwell?” She pushes the file forward. “He seems the type to get a shove in if he found out that the wife was paying you to find out if he was cheating.”

Cormoran sits forward on the sofa, pursing his lips. He nods, considering, as he massages his truncated right leg, digging the heel of his palm into the flesh above his knee. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But Haliwell’s not exactly the type to be hauling around a Nikon D500 with a telephoto lens capable of giving me a black eye.”

“The boyfriend, then.” Robin taps her palm against Ollie Lafitte’s file folder. “Oliver Lafitte’s stalker – Breul.”

“That’d be the one.” He hides a wince, pressed against a particularly inflamed spot along the side of the abused joint.         

Robin doesn’t fail to notice, keen as she is. "Your knee's bothering you."

"Wrenched it going off the kerb – s'just swollen." Swollen badly enough that Cormoran thinks privately it will be at least another day or two before he will be able to attempt the prosthetic again. Two days of crutches and pinning up his trouser leg. Two days of wasting time. But now he has Robin back – he has Robin and the stone that has sat heavy and invisible in the center of his chest has been lifted, and it is not so terrible to consider.

Robin says "you ought to ice it” and heads for the refrigerator where maybe, once upon a time, an ice pack had languished.

"I ought to do a lot of things," Cormoran mutters.

Memory has not served – there is no ice pack to be found. Robin might have made do with ice cubes in a plastic baggie, but instead she passes Cormoran a green package of Tesco frozen peas, dredged up from the depths of the freezer. "Here, keep this on there for a bit."

Cormoran blinks at the frozen pack in his hand, then settles it obligingly on his sore knee. "I didn't even know I had those."

“Well,” says Robin, circling back to the kitchenette “you also have these – if you’re hungry.” She passes him the plastic container of baked treats, snagging a raspberry tart for herself.

“What are these?” Cormoran accepts the container, equal parts baffled and delighted.

“I may have taken up baking,” Robin makes a face, trying not to crumble tart everywhere. “I brought these by when I came round the office this afternoon.”

Cormoran grins at her, all mischief. “Bribery?”

She feigns offense. “Nothing of the sort.”

With careful fingers, Cormoran pokes at the arrangement of desserts. “Cornish fairings!” He plucks one of the ginger biscuits from the Tupperware, bright-eyed and delighted. “My Aunt Joan makes these!”

Robin grins at him over the edge of her tart, the raspberry sharp and sweet on her tongue. And she finds herself memorizing his face, the rough edges and the smile lines and the warmth in his eyes, strangely young and unguarded for just a moment. She says "I _doubt_ mine will compare."

And Cormoran in his strange mood, exhausted and a little punch-drunk, smirks at her and leans in – careful not to disturb the bag of frozen peas, doing their job to numb his knee valiantly – and confides in her "be honest with you, Aunt Joan is a shit baker – always burns the bottoms of the biscuits." He takes a generous bite of the ginger biscuit, mindful of his split lip. "These are _excellent_."

They make their way through the brownie squares, the tarts, and ginger biscuits talking softly about the Lafitte case, the need to call Wardle in the morning. Matthew is a silent specter in the room – an uneasy, lurking presence that they talk around, no discussion of the wedding or honeymoon, of Robin’s home life, of the blocked phone number and the threat of screened calls and emails.

She wakes with a terrible crick in her neck when the sky above Denmark Street gives way from deep navy to the soft purple of pigeon wings, having nodded off in the lumpy computer chair. Cormoran snores steadily on the sofa, the bag of peas now thoroughly defrosted and melted onto his trouser leg.

In the faint light, Robin searches out another dose of the painkillers, the glass of water left on the desk. She tucks the spill of her bright hair behind her ear, nudging him awake.

"R'bin?"

“Just checking on you,” she soothes. “How's the head?”

“Ugh.” Cormoran pulls a face.

“Poor thing.” Robin smiles. How very, very fond of him she is. “Here, take your pills and then back to sleep.”

When she wakes again, it is to sunlight streaming through the office blinds and the smell of coffee brewing on the kettle. Cormoran’s voice drifts, low and rich from the inner office – snatches of words. And for all that the events of yesterday were a whirlwind of adrenaline and emotion, she has never felt so settled as she does now.

God, how she has missed this.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic's not dead! I just really didn't want to write more of Fucking Matthew.

Cormoran waves Robin into the inner office once he hangs up on his reassurances to Nick and Ilsa, already punching Wardle's number into the desk phone.

Robin folds her arms, leaning her hip on the edge of the desk and examining Cormoran out of the corner of her eye as they listen to the phone ring. The early sunlight slanting through the blinds does him few favors, but rest seems to have done him some good – he isn't nearly so frayed around the edges, some of the haggard mania and exhaustion eased from his features, the tightness in his shoulders softened just enough.

There's a click on the line. Wardle's voice, sour and half-muffled says " _ yeah _ ?"

"Wardle." Robin has never managed to disabuse Cormoran of his habit of shouting into the speaker phone. "You can starting looking to add assault to the list of charges to bring against Andrew Breul." He rubs thoughtfully at his scabbed-over lip. "Could probably stretch it to attempted manslaughter if you really wanted to."

There's a very long silence in which the crackling of the line is the only indication that Wardle is still there. Then, the DI lets out a long sigh, resigned. " _ What the hell happened _ ?"

Cormoran, with his bruised head propped in one large hand, rolls his green eyes up to Robin with a weary look. "Breul and I crossed paths – he introduced my face to the broadside of his camera and my ribs to the bonnet of a cab."

" _ Jesus Christ, Gooner – you don't fuck around, do you _ ?"

Robin absolutely does not smile at the twinkle of mischief in Cormoran's eyes, but her face might squish itself up a bit. She takes the opportunity to interject, leaning over the phone. "Attempted manslaughter isn't actually that far off the mark," she informs Wardle coolly. "He's underselling it, but when I picked him up from the hospital he was concussed, three broken ribs, a buggered nose, and his face looks like raw hamburger."

She doesn't quite catch Wardle's response, too focused on the way Cormoran scowls – his eyes too soft with fondness to really mean it – mouthing 'tattle-tale'.

" _ If you press charges we can bring him in _ ," Wardle says " _ easy thing to get a warrant on the home and have him rounded up _ ."

"No," Cormoran's answer is instant, his eyes gone distant and contemplative. "No, not yet. The matter with Ollie isn't properly settled."

"But, if they arrest him for assaulting you –?" Robin frowns.

"Then –  _ if _ they convict him – he serves the time for that," Cormoran says. The shadows are heavy on his face. "But there'd still be no record of his harassing Oliver."

Wardle makes an unhappy noise over the line.

"Need an airtight case," Cormoran mutters, pushing himself out of his slouch. "Clear evidence of harassment and abuse that'll put Breul away for a good while and ensure that he can't come within a ten mile radius of Ollie once he's out."

Wardle noises over the telephone in unhappy agreement. " _ You still want to go through with the exhibition business, then _ ?"

"I do." Cormoran has that stubborn set to his jaw again. "I want to be certain that Ollie is safe, and doing that requires concrete proof of Andrew Breul's behavior that'll warrant court prosecution."

There's a long silence on the line. Then Wardle says " _ fine. You're right, damn it _ ."

"I know I'm right," but there isn't any arrogance in Cormoran's voice when he confirms it, no smugness. Just a steady reassurance that he is absolutely firm in his conclusions and is glad to hear a member of the police force finally acknowledge it. "What's your DS had to say?"

" _ Ekwensi's agreed to be your police support since Andy'll recognize me in a heartbeat _ ."

"Great."

" _ I've got to go, Gooner. Robin. I'll be in touch _ ." And then, brusque as ever, Wardle is gone – leaving them with the dial tone.

Robin reaches to replace the receiver, plunging the office into silence. For a long while, neither of them speaks, lost to their own thoughts. She hates to break the moment, hates to leave Denmark Street when she has only finally returned, but there are things that need doing and conversations that must be had and she has lingered long enough this morning.

"I ought to be going," she tells Cormoran softly, shattering the silence. "I… well, I need to have a very hard conversation with my husband. Can I come back tomorrow?"

He does not flinch, but the line of his shoulders tightens perceptibly at the word. "Yeah." Cormoran does not look her in the eye, focused instead somewhere in the middle distance. "Yeah, of course."

"I'll need the key," Robin prompts him. Her voice is terribly gentle.

"Oh." He blinks, dazed, like resurfacing from a daydream. "That's right. It's in the—" Cormoran gestures, flaps a hand in the direction of the front desk. "Top drawer." A pause. "Robin?" His eyes, so terribly swollen and bruised, are dreadfully earnest. "Call if you need anything, all right?"

Robin adjusts the strap of her bag across her shoulder, has to look away. Neither one of them expects it will be a very cheerful afternoon for her. "I should be telling you that."

"Yeah, well." He shrugs.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Cormoran." She gifts him with a warm smile, disappearing through to the front office. Her voice drifts back to him, admonishing in a way that makes him grin – the split lip stinging. "Make sure you put some ice on that face."

"I will."

He doesn't.

Robin only digs her phone out from the bottom of her bag when she is well away from Denmark Street, clinging to the overhead strap on the Tube with one hand and scrolling through her notifications with the other. There are five missed calls from Matt. Voicemails that she doesn't bother to listen to – not after reading the flurry of ugly, emotive, wheedling texts.

Each accusation, each whining plea sends a white-hot spike of fury through her. Sets her heart to racing, chases the breath from her lungs. She squashes it. Tamps it down and crumples it up and mounts the steps of their flat breathing carefully.

The jangle of her keys is too loud in the stillness of the space. Her purse lands on the bench with a  _ whump _ .

"Matt?"

A sprawl of limbs on the couch, his eyes red-rimmed and flinty. "Well, look who decided to come home."

Robin grinds her teeth, fights down the angry weight that tightens in her fists, squeezes high in her chest. "I told you what happened – there was an accident." She heads for their cramped kitchen space and the squat little coffee maker. "Cormoran got pushed in front of a car and his emergency contacts couldn't be there."

Matt pitches his voice high, stupid and simpering. "Oh,  _ Cormoran _ ! Poor  _ Cormoran _ !"

"There wasn't anyone else they could call –"

"Except you," he flows smoothly to his feet, padding over to sulk at her across the breakfast counter. "Who'll run off into the night for him at the drop of a hat."

Robin measures out the teaspoons of coffee grounds.  _ You took my phone. You blocked Cormoran's number. You've been snooping. You have no right _ . "Well what would  _ you _ do, Matt, if it was one of your friends who was injured? Hm?" She challenges him with a nasty twist of her mouth. "If it was one of the boys from rugby who needed a lift home from the hospital 'cause he was concussed and his face was all smashed up and his leg was buggered?"

"That's different."

" _ Why _ ."

"Because it is!"

"He's my  _ friend _ , Matt!" Robin whirls on him, bright and bristling with her righteous fury. He has no right. He has no  _ idea _ what he's saying – how  _ dare _ he? She spreads her hands on the cool surface of the countertop, presses her fingers into the laminate to stop them from trembling. "Why's it  _ any _ different when it's him?"

" _ I don't fuck my friends,  _ that's _ why Robin _ !"

And Robin feels her whole body go cold, stiff and still – her veins suffused with a slow-creeping frost. Every inch of her is numb. When she speaks, the words are distant, hollow and far-away in her ears. "Except Sarah Shadlock."

Matt scoffs, knocked off his balance. "Oh, don't…"

"Don't  _ what _ , Matthew?" She bites off each syllable of his name. "I have  _ never _ slept with Cormoran, Matt.  _ Never _ . But you – you keep trying to accuse me…" And she can't help it. The crack in her voice. The way her face starts to crumble, crumple up like tissue paper. "After you and  _ Sarah _ . After you lied to me. After you  _ went through my phone _ ."

There it is. Laid out plain before him.

"What?"

Robin swipes at the few hot, angry tears that have slipped out, spilling down her cheeks. "Don’t," she hisses. "Don't you dare lie to me again. You went into my phone and you blocked Cormoran’s number."

“Rob --” His face says it all so clearly.

“You had no right!”

Matt circles the counter, slow and careful, reaching for her. And Robin shrinks away, shoves his hands off – furious, ruinous. “I know,” he says “I know, Robin, I thought I was  _ helping _ .”

She scoffs.

“You didn’t...” Matt shakes his head, searching for the words. “You didn’t see yourself. You were so caught up in the work, in the cases, in playing detective – Christ, do you know how much danger you were in? Do you know how  _ frightened  _ I was to see you throwing yourself into that?”

Robin trembles, backed against the counter. She cannot look him in the eye, she cannot bear it. “It was my choice,” she insists faintly. “My choice to take those risks.”

“Christ Robin.” Matt rakes a hand across his scalp, dark hairs standing on end. “But d’you have any idea what it was like for me watching you? Knowing that every time you went to that bloody office you were putting yourself in danger and he was letting you?” He is so close to her, shifting his weight, tilting his head trying to catch her gaze. “ _ Fuck _ . Rob. After what happened to you – knowing he was putting you at risk like that? Of course, I blocked his number.”

She sniffles, drags the joint of her thumb beneath her leaking nose. He lied. He lied. He lied. But...

Matt leans beside her, slouching with his palms braced on the edge of the counter. “Fine. You want to be best friends forever with Cormoran. But, you’re my  _ wife  _ – you can’t expect me not to be protective. Not to worry.”

Robin lets him wrap an arm around her shoulders. Lets him kiss the crown of her head and pretend it is all better. But... he has never worried. The deepest part of her knows this.


End file.
